Mag's Coffee's Inspiring Story

We would like to take this time to show our support to Mag's Coffee in Clarksville. Husband and wife, Ken and Maggie Bradford have a real life inspiring story to tell about their small cafe located in Clarksville, TN that got hit hard by the floods this past month. Here is a great story about their perseverance through it all.

"Our adventure began with a rag-tag little building on the corner, and we began tearing out walls and practically removing every piece of wall material inside the building. Maggie has always been excited about the whole thing.

We decided to dedicate part of this property to our Mom's, neither of whom are with us anymore. The flower bed directly in front of the building was dedicated to Maggie's mom (Mille Linton), so we just named it "Millie's Garden". Closer to the street, we dedicated a small flower bed to my mom (Alma Bradford), thus "Alma's Rose". These pictures are the original flower beds (pre-flood).

Obviously, after being under water mixed with gasoline, most of the flowers did not survive. I feel it kind of ironic that the daylilies did survive and are now blooming. You see, the daylilies actually belonged to Maggie's mom in Houston, TX. I dug them from her yard many years ago and brought them to Tennessee. Somehow, we just thought that she was with us and wanted us to know that things would get better if we just kept on trying. All of the other flowers have been replaced and the beds look good again. Just yesterday, one of the city workers drove into our parking lot and told me that seeing those flowers back again was an inspiration to him. He said that the flowers told him that we are not defeated and everyone enjoys this one bright spot on a street of total destruction.

You must realize that even though we had 30 inches of water inside our building, some businesses had 8 feet of water inside theirs. A member of the Chamber of Commerce told Maggie that approximately half of the businesses on Riverside Dr. would probably not re-open. We haven't gotten the national news like the oil spill or Tiger Woods, but people are hurting down here.

I felt somewhat selfish about working only on our building and not helping other business owners with their disasters and told Maggie that we just had to do something. A couple of weeks ago I took the grill down to the shop and with the help of Maggie, Ashley, Dana and some others, we prepared some 220 meals and delivered them to the workers along Riverside Dr. That really wasn't much, but I guess it was something. By the way, my grill was stolen while I was letting it cool off overnight.

After drying out the building, removing the lower half of all the walls, replacing all of the electrical outlets, scrubbing down all of the new equipment that had never even been plugged in, getting our electricity restored (2 weeks), the local codes department informed us that the commode in our brand new handicapped bathroom was off by six inches. Now we had plumbers in our building cutting a giant hole in our ceramic tile flooring, throwing dust all over our freshly painted walls and trim. $2,200 dollars later, our commode had been moved six inches.

It seems that just because we are small that we are being watched under a microscope. We are really scared to do much of anything for fear that codes will require us to re-do.

We erected a partial fence around the front of the property (about 5 feet off Riverside Dr.) to prevent a young child from running into the street. The codes department called and told us to take it down, so we did.

Codes even went so far as to tell Maggie that her flowers were "questionable".

It has definitely been a journey and Maggie really does have a story to tell."

Mag's Coffee has definitely been through a lot, and we look forward to their opening coming soon! They will be serving Vienna Coffee. So if you are ever in the area please stop in and let them know how good their flower beds look, and how inspiring their story is.

Check out "Mag's Coffee" on Facebook.

Church Street meets Market Street

Yesterday, 40 people gathered together at Tellico Village Community Church.

Fair Trade was the subject. They learn about creative ways we can help marginalized and sometimes impoverished people improve their lives by purchasing good products that return a larger share of revenue to the growers, producers and craftspeople who make them. They enjoyed the rich taste of Cafe Feminino, the gourmet coffee blend that is served in the Tellico Joe Cafe. John Clark from Vienna Coffee Company was on hand to tell us about Fair Trade Coffee and our Relationship coffees (El Puente, La Armonia Hermosa, and Cafe Femenino). Also Bill and Joan Cochran from Shop the World Gifts which features Fair Trade gifts and crafts made by people in Third World countries talked about their store and products.

People were able to sample the wonderful Cafe Femenino Peru coffee that is featured in their Tellico Joe Cafe and desserts prepared within the community.

People came and joined us at the corner of Church and Main - where faith meets life head-on!

National Businesswomen's Week

Thanks to President Herbert Hoover the third week of October has been designated as National Businesswomen's Week. Founded in 1919, Business and Professional Women/USA (BPW/USA), a nonprofit organization that is committed to career advancement and professional development for female professionals nationwide, has celebrated this annual awareness-raising event ever since.

Fact: In 1999, 255,000 women in their 70s, 80s and 90s were employed or actively seeking employment in the United States, an 80 percent increase since 1985. The U.S. Security Administration project that more than 7 million people aged 65 and over will fill the labor force by 2020, and 3 million of them will be women.

VCC is lucky to have 5 wonderful businesswomen working for them...

Without their hard work, VCC wouldn't be the company it is today!  So if you work with and/or  know any women in the business world, show your appreciation for them this week by buying our Fairly traded, organic Cafe Femenino coffee which supports women on all ends of the coffee process. From women farmers, sellers, buyers, and roasters...

We thank you for your support and give appreciation to all of those hardworking businesswomen!

Rachel Rising and Unveiling Cafe Femenino Project

On Oct. 2, 2008 at a moving and powerful concert, Rachel Rising, in support of a battered women's home, Haven House, Vienna Coffee Company unveiled their newest coffee to their already high quality selection of speciality coffees...

Welcome to the Cafe Femenino Project!!!

Our excitement for this coffee is high and we hope it will catch on quickly.

Here is how the project works...

VCC has chosen to participate in the Café Femenino Project roasting these Fair Trade Certified, specialty grade, organic coffees and distributing them throughout our region. VCC has selected Haven House (www.havenhousetn.org) as their sponsored local women's organization as allowed by the Café Femenino Project. After paying the women growers a fair price for their green coffee, VCC roasts the beans in small batches to bring out the optimal flavors from each variety.  A portion of all coffee sales then go directly to aid the women at Haven House. Disenfranchised women are being helped on both ends of the project.