ROTARY CLUB OF SASKATOON MARCH 6,2022

 

MEETING AT The Saskatoon Club with a Zoom alternative.

 

Members sang ‘O’ Canada. Steve Wilson recited grace.

 

Mark Gryba monitored Zoom. Cashier was Donna Gauthier. Paul Gauthier chaired the meeting. 

 

Steve Wilson introduced the visitors and guests: Don Lepp, prospective member, and our guest speaker, Alisha Esmail.

 

 

President Steve announced:

 

 

 

 

 

GROCERY CARDS:

 

Donna has Sobeys as well as Co-Op cards right now with denominations in multiples of $50.

 

 

Kent Smith-Windsor and Prem Sharma were both awarded a Paul Harris Pin and Certificate.

 

Kent also gave a report on RAP including the announcement that the Badge Shield and Star Dinner will be held at Prairie Land on April 20 starting at 5:30 pm. Individual tickets and tables are being sold. Paul Gauthier is the contact. Lt. Gov. Russ Mirasty will be the main speaker and his topic will be about service. RAP is in both Public and Catholic schools and now reaches 1000 students. Kent reminds us that a cell phone can be a tool, but it can also be a weapon.

 

 

 

 

 

Alisha is an entrepreneur who is involved with creating a coffee product with an environmentally sustainable chain of production and distribution.

 

Will Arscott introduced Alisha and told us that his family had spent a lot of time with Alisha and her family. They met on the ski hill on numerous occasions throughout the years and Alisha is an accomplished skier.

 

Alisha had a broad base of travel experience before she started her current venture. She began with pursuing her desire to be a film director and to study at film school. Then things changed. She became involved with international development. Her family is from Tanzania and in her work with international development she spent time in Haiti, Panama, South Africa, India, and Nepal. She dealt with situations of crises which stressed clean water and emergency medical care.

 

Alisha has always been passionate about coffee. Even back in high school she would spend time with coffee and tea farmers, asking lots of questions.

 

Alisha started a company now called Road Coffee. Her main interest is dealing with the inequity between the farmer who produce the coffee and the buyers. There are problems with what she calls “the supply chain.” The producers are often not able to sell their coffee beans at a high enough price to make a profit and then they must get loans at outrageous interest rates of up to 70% just to keep producing. Road Coffee seeks direct contact with producers, buying directly from them, which allows the farmers to be paid a fair price. Road Coffee also advances micro loans to producers, where needed, at a lower interest rate, 7%, and allows payments to be made in coffee. In Peru alone’ Road Coffee has helped 23 or 24 farmers to get ahead. There is not any opposition yet from the rogue companies with the high interest loans because, Alisha says, they have only made a very small dent in the problem. There is much yet to be done.

 

A word about coffee and how we get to consume it. It starts out as a fruit which must ferment to get the coffee flavour, and then we get the bean. Road Coffee buys the coffee beans and then packages them.

 

Road Coffee supplies locally corporate offices, the Saskatoon Club, Calories, Safeway Sobeys, indigenous projects, and you can order on-line.

 

 

Next Meeting is March 20. A representative from the Saskatoon Chapter of the Ukrainian Council of Canada will present on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine,

 

 

     

-   reported by Steve Wilson