BREWING CHANGE

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee will have Public Class and Factory Tours available to schedule via Humanitix. Anytime anyone signs up to attend a Public Class or Factory Tour via Humanitix 100% of the booking fees go towards funding education projects.

IMPACT: The 2.5% booking fee from each purchase is donated by Humanitix to close the global education gap for disadvantaged children. Total Donations: $5,597.77.

PROJECT LEADER: Stone Creek Coffee Education Team

PROJECT TIMELINE: November 2022 – ongoing

PROJECT SUMMARY: Guest House of Milwaukee, located on North 13th Street between Juneau and McKinley Avenues in the King Park neighborhood, is the largest publicly funded homeless shelter in the city and has been leading our community in ending the cycle of poverty in their clients’ lives for nearly forty years. Guest House of Milwaukee provides shelter, food, housing, education, and services to Milwaukee’s homeless who seek to transform their lives with dignity and purpose.

IMPACT: Guest House provides approximately 200-400 sandwiches daily to shelter guests and to those in need in our community. The goal is to have sandwiches available to all those in need each day of the year.

PROJECT LEADER: Radar, Barista, and Austin, Cafe Coach

PROJECT TIMELINE: April 2023, July 2023, November 2023

PROJECT SUMMARY: We’ve partnered with OneHope27 to provide them with monthly coffee donations. Over the years the number of children in foster care in the U.S. has grown from an average of 200,000 to currently over 437,000. To help battle this crisis, OneHope27 has worked to provide hope and support to those involved in foster care. This organization has focused on providing basic material items that children in foster care often lack through our placement bags. They also connect and mentor individuals wanting to get involved with foster care and have hosted career fairs for youth in care. This year they will open their Support home that will provide the connection moms need to succeed with a mentoring program, peer team building, life skills classes, and low-cost housing right in the heart of the city. The house provides supportive and safe housing for young first time moms ages 18-25 whose child/children are entering care for the first time. 

PROJECT SUMMARY: We’ve partnered again with these key community organizations to do our part to ensure those struggling in our community have access to high quality food.

PROJECT SUMMARY: We’re partnering again with this key Brewing Change organization, Riverwest Food Pantry. We have donated coffee, brewers, refrigerators, and more and will continue to make monthly donations with the sale of each shirt. Their mission is to “come together around food to relieve hunger, improve lives and grow community well-being” and we’re thrilled to come alongside in support of what they’re doing.

PROJECT SUMMARY: As part of our commitments to the environment and serving our community, specifically those in need, we are donating coffee from our Cupping Lab to the Bay View Community Center Food Pantry.

PROJECT SUMMARY: The Bakery and Cafe teams at the Factory as well as the other Milwaukee-area cafes are composting coffee grounds and food waste through Compost Crusader. According to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, in the United States, food is the single largest category of material placed in municipal landfills, where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Municipal solid waste landfills are the third-largest source of human-related methane emissions in the United States, accounting for approximately 14.1 percent of these emissions in 2017. In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This added up to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010.

PROJECT SUMMARY: In order to give back to our community, Stone Creek Coffee has donated coffee to the Open Door Cafe meal program at St. John the Evangelist in addition to volunteering there. Stone Creek donated a commercial coffee brewer and supplies the food bank with coffee for brewing during mealtimes at the Open Door Cafe on an as-needed basis.

IMPACT UPDATE: Stone Creek has donated over 500 lbs of coffee to the Open Door Cafe in addition to providing necessary supplies such as cups and coffee brewing equipment.

PROJECT LEADER: Jessica Sheridan, Director of Coffee

PROJECT TIMELINE: 2016 – Ongoing (*Currently on hold, as regular lunch services aren’t occuring. Once they resume, we’ll continue making donations.)

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek believes that a cup of coffee has the power to heal. In this spirit, we are now supporting the Milwaukee Community Fridge. The Milwaukee Community Fridge is a public refrigerator/pantry space that’s open 24/7 and regularly stocked with fresh food. The goal of the project is to combat food insecurity in our city. The fridge is located at the corner of 19th and Fond du Lac right outside of Tandem. Inspired by a similar project in New York, the Community Fridge group felt the need to help feed the community especially during these trying times.

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee takes pride in supporting organizations that make our community a better place to live, work, and play. Our goal is to extend deeper within communities in which we operate, by partnering with and supporting organizations that share our values and goals. Stone Creek Coffee offers donations of brewed coffee and gift boxes for raffles. We do not make cash donations unless we are closely involved with an organization. Groups that take priority are non-profit 501c3 organizations, local schools, youth organizations, and businesses we regularly work with.

IMPACT UPDATE: Stone Creek donates a minimum of 9 gift boxes (valued at $40) each month. While we, unfortunately, cannot accommodate all of the requests we receive, the Customer Care Team regularly monitors incoming requests and works diligently to provide remarkable care.

PROJECT LEADER: Amy Balestrieri, Director of Customer Care

PROJECT TIMELINE: 20+ years

PROJECT SUMMARY: What started as a fashion challenge for herself, Blythe Hill (CEO of Dressember), slowly transformed into a movement to end human trafficking. Human trafficking is a global problem, which doesn’t exclude Milwaukee. This movement is now a global event where you commit to wearing a dress or tie every day in the month of December. The power of this small consistent action shows the force of everyday advocacy to help bring the much needed awareness and finances to fight against human trafficking. 

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee is excited to support Abby Barlow, one of our Lake Country Cafe baristas, in their Brewing Change initiative! On October 9th, Abby and a team of Coffee Geeks will be participating in Milwaukee’s Out of the Darkness Walk to promote suicide awareness and prevention by walking together and raising funds. Stone Creek Coffee will be matching team member donations in support of Abby’s Brewing Change efforts.

IMPACT: Promote suicide awareness and prevention by walking together and raising funds.

PROJECT LEADER: Abby Barlow, Barista

PROJECT TIMELINE: October 2022

PROJECT SUMMARY: June is Pride month. To celebrate and support the members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community, we’ve committed to donate all proceeds of every decorated sugar cookie purchase to the MKE LGBT Community Center. In addition, Stone Creek’s Angeline Garvey designed a series of Pride Posters, with all proceeds of these posters to be donated to Courage MKE.

IMPACT: All proceeds of every decorated sugar cookie purchase throughout June will be donated to the MKE LGBT Community Center. And all proceeds of the poster sales throughout June will be donated to Courage MKE.

PROJECT LEADER: Eric Resch, Co-owner and Founder

PROJECT TIMELINE: June 1st, 2022 – June 30th, 2022

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee is thrilled to be supporting Radar Vandentoorn, one of our baristas, in their Brewing Change initiative! During the month of September, Radar will be participating in the Great Cycle Challenge to end childhood cancer and is excited to assemble a team of Coffee Geeks to join them. How does the Great Cycle Challenge work? Individuals set themself a ride target and pedal it down over the month, logging miles along the way. You can ride on or off-road or on a stationary bike at home. Click below to sponsor Radar and their team of Coffee Geeks!

IMPACT: Help raise money for the Children’s Cancer Research Fund by sponsoring this team. We’ve made a donation of $1,840.28 to this cause.

PROJECT LEADER: Radar, Barista

PROJECT TIMELINE: September 2022

PROJECT SUMMARY: In fall 2019, we began the journey to become a certified B Corporation. this step was in service to living out our founding value – that we all live with an obligation to those around us. Joining the B Corp community aligns with that idea and gives us accountability, community, and framework as we continue to be a force for good in our communities, both local and global. Learn more about what it means to be a B Corp by reading OUR BLOG.

IMPACT UPDATE: While we’ve officially achieved certification as a B Crop, we view that as the start of the journey. Each year we will be releasing and Impact Report listing the work we’ve done to continually improve the value we create in 5 Key Impact Areas: Our Workers, Our Communities, Our Environment, Our Governance, & Our Customers. We will be releasing our 2021 Impact Report in March.

PROJECT LEADER: Eric Resch, Managing Director

PROJECT TIMELINE: Perpetual

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee used its unused oven time and our many talented bakers to give back to our community via the Neighbor Loaves program. By purchasing Neighbor Loaves, freshly baked bread gets donated directly to the Riverwest Food Pantry. These loaves are super hearty and wholesome, made with locally milled grains. We partnered with the Artisan Grain Collaborative, Meadowlark Organics, and Lonesome Stone Milling to make this program happen.

IMPACT UPDATE: In 2020, we donated 711 loaves of bread for the Riverwest Food Pantry. In 2021, we donated 349 loaves.

PROJECT LEADER: Kris Collett, Director of Bakery

PROJECT TIMELINE: May – November, 2020 // February 25th, 2021 – January 13th, 2022

PROJECT SUMMARY: In recognition of these important days, we will be matching employee donations to organizations working for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion through the month of February. For every dollar an employee gives to an organization, we will give two more to that same organization.

IMPACT UPDATE: We donated a total of $1,100. The organizations we donated to were: EJI, Gold House, and BADG.

PROJECT LEADER: Drew Pond, Director of Development

PROJECT TIMELINE: February 2022

PROJECT SUMMARY: We planned to donate 10,000 pounds of coffee to teachers and school staff throughout Metro Milwaukee. This school year looks different for many of us. We understand the challenges that regularly come with teaching, but especially this year with so many more barriers to overcome. To show our appreciation for those members of our community (and to keep them fueled up!), we’ve committed to make this donation over the next few months in the Milwaukee area. Stay tuned for more about this project as well as updates on our other Brewing Change initiative. You can partner with us by purchasing coffee at stonecreekcoffee.com by hitting the button below, or by stopping at any of our cafes around the greater Milwaukee area.

PROJECT SUMMARY: June is Pride month. To celebrate and support the members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community, we’ve committed to donate $1 of every decorated sugar cookie purchase to the MKE LGBT Community Center.

IMPACT: $1 of every decorated sugar cookie purchase throughout June will be donated to the MKE LGBT Community Center. We sold 430 cookies, so a $430 donation will be made.

PROJECT LEADER: Eric Resch, Co-owner and Founder

PROJECT TIMELINE: June 1st, 2021 – June 30th, 2021

PROJECT SUMMARY: Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the struggles related to the national strike, many Colombians have basic needs going unmet or worse. Our partners at Osito Coffee have created a Farmer Fund to benefit the farmers that they work with. These funds will be distributed to farmers in two ways: it will supply over 150 farmers with hermetic sealed bags for parchment storage of their 2021-2022 crop, and it will also provide one member of each major association they work with a new drying mill.

IMPACT: For every donation made, Osito matches each donation. We made a donation of $200, and Osito matched that $200 donation. Their project goal is to raise $4000 and match that same amount, for a total of $8000 in funds.

PROJECT LEADER: Jessica Sheridan, Director of Coffee

PROJECT TIMELINE: June 25th, 2021

PROJECT SUMMARY: For every pound of coffee beans sold in our cafes and online June 10th & 11th, we will donate $1 to Children’s Wisconsin. Help us brew change by stocking up on coffee and partner with us.

IMPACT: $528 was raised for Children’s Wisconsin.

PROJECT LEADER: Drew Pond, Director of Operations

PROJECT TIMELINE: June 10th, 2021 – June 11th, 2021

PROJECT SUMMARY: Teachers have a bigger impact on student outcomes than any other aspect of school. Every day in classrooms across Milwaukee, teachers are changing the life trajectories of their students and building the future of our communities. We’ve teamed up with our friends at City Forward Collective to bring you this short-run half pound coffee, We Love Teachers Blend.

SUMMARY: For each pound sold in our cafes and at stonecreekcoffee.com from March 11th – 14th, Stone Creek would donate a pound of beans to area food banks.

IMPACT: 1,989lbs of coffee was donated to area food banks, including Interchange Food Pantry, UWM Food Center & Pantry, Hunger Task Force, Ayuda Mutua Milwaukee, and Capuchin Community Services.

PROJECT LEADER Jessica Sheridan, Director of Coffee

PROJECT TIMELINE: April – May 2021

SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee is joining forces with the Charles E. Kubly Foundation to raise awareness about depression, support suicide prevention programs, and increase access to quality mental health resources in our communities. The Bakery will decorate special cookies that will be available for purchase in Stone Creek cafes the week of March 10th. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of each cookie will be donated to the Charles E. Kubly Foundation.

IMPACT: Support the Foundation’s mission to raise awareness about depression as a mental health disease; remove the stigma associated with it, support suicide prevention programs, and improve access to quality mental health resources in our communities. We sold 103 of these decorated cookies.

PROJECT LEADER Kris Collett, Bakery Director

PROJECT TIMELINE: March 10th – March 17th, 2021

PROJECT SUMMARY:  Heidi attended the Milwaukee Lead and Asbestos Information Center’s courses on lead inspection and risk assessment to learn more about the hazards of lead in our community. As many people are aware, Milwaukee has many issues with lead in our drinking water, our soil, and in our older buildings.Through this training, Heidi learned ways to help people identify and deal with lead hazards to create a healthier environment for everyone.

PROJECT SUMMARY: What started as a fashion challenge for herself, Blythe Hill (CEO of Dressember), slowly transformed into a movement to end human trafficking. Human trafficking is a global problem, which doesn’t exclude Milwaukee. This movement is now a global event where you commit to wearing a dress or tie everyday in the month of December. The power of this small consistent action shows the force of every day advocacy to help bring the much needed awareness and finances to fight against human trafficking. My belief in this power is why I created the Dressember team, Talitha Koum. On Wednesday, December 1st, Stone Creek donated $1 to this Dressember group, for every pound of coffee sold in our cafes and at stonecreekcoffee.com

PROJECT SUMMARY: What started as a fashion challenge for herself, Blythe Hill (CEO of Dressember), slowly transformed into a movement to end human trafficking. Human trafficking is a global problem, which doesn’t exclude Milwaukee. This movement is now a global event where you commit to wearing a dress or tie everyday in the month of December. The power of this small consistent action shows the force of every day advocacy to help bring the much needed awareness and finances to fight against human trafficking. My belief in this power is why I created the Dressember team, Talitha Koum. On Friday, December 4th Stone Creek gave $1 to this Dressember group, for every pound of coffee bought. We strongly believe that together we can end it.

PROJECT SUMMARY: As a part of our environmental commitment, we began using sustainable electrical energy for all of our cafes and for the Factory. You could say that the coffee you are drinking is wind-powered. This step in conserving energy serves as an example of who we are and how we want to operate as a company. We exist to leave a positive impact on the world around us, one cup of coffee at a time.

PROJECT SUMMARY: Here at Stone Creek, we use a lot of coffee bags each year, roughly 200,000. We have always used bags that were reusable as we wanted to encourage people to be mindful of their waste, but we have been unable to find a great product that was also recyclable, until now. Beginning January 28th, we’ve switched out our one-pound bags to new recyclable and reusable bags. We’ll be switching over the five-pound bags in the next few months as well.

PROJECT SUMMARY: For each half-pound bag sold, Stone Creek Coffee donated $2.00 to the Alyssa Ann Pape Endowment Fund, which helps support the Herma Heart Institute at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. In a mug of this sweet and juicy coffee, you’ll experience notes of citrus, cocoa, and cream. Click the button below to learn more about Rally for Aly.

PROJECT SUMMARY: Bake the Vote is an international bake sale effort under the Bakers Against Racism banner to raise money for organizations working for fair elections.

PROJECT SUMMARY:  The Milwaukee Parks Department has faced a plethora of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To support Milwaukee County Parks and their ‘Love Your Parks’ campaign, Stone Creek Coffee teamed up with our friends at Milwaukee County Parks to bring you a short-run, half pound bag of coffee called, Love Your Parks. $2 of every purchase of Love Your Parks was donated to Milwaukee County Parks.

IMPACT UPDATE: We sold 1,706 bags of Love Your Parks coffee. We donated $3,413 to the Milwaukee Parks Department as part of this Brewing Change collaboration. Our goal was to sell 500 bags of Love Your Parks coffee and donate over $1000 to our County Park system with our customers’ support. We crushed it! Thank You.  

PROJECT LEADER: Drew Pond, Director of Ops

PROJECT TIMELINE: August 6th – 26th, 2020

PROJECT SUMMARY: Over the Summer of 2020 and in line with Stone Creek Coffee’s social obligation to our community, all employee donations made to social justice organizations were matched by Stone Creek Coffee. Employees were encouraged to make donations to local social justice organizations making change in our community such as Wisconsin Voices and MKE LBGT Community Center.

IMPACT UPDATE: Over the course of the summer, 21 employees donated $5,077.46 to different social justice organizations across Milwaukee and the US that were matched by Stone Creek Coffee. Together, with our employees, we have donated $10,154.92.

PROJECT LEADER: Eric Resch, Managing Director and Founder

PROJECT TIMELINE: May – August, 2020

PROJECT SUMMARY: Stone Creek Coffee partnered with local food banks in March and April 2020 to donate 1,000 pounds of coffee to those in need in our community. In addition, Stone Creek Coffee highlighted community resources and food banks on our social media platforms to spread awareness of assistance available to those in need and to potential volunteers that were willing to help out.  

IMPACT UPDATE: 1,000 pounds of coffee was donated to five Milwaukee area food banks including Hunger Task Force and UW-Milwaukee Food Center and Pantry.

PROJECT LEADER: Drew Pond, Director of Ops

PROJECT TIMELINE: March – April 2020

PROJECT SUMMARY: In wake of the Black Lives Matter movement happening across our country and the tragic murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other innocent people around our country, Stone Creek Coffee donated to the Equal Justice Initiative and Radio Milwaukee and their ‘Community Stories’ initiative to help them tell our history.

IMPACT UPDATE: $2,000 donated to Equal Justice Initiative and the Radio Milwaukee’s ‘Community Stories’ initiative.

PROJECT LEADER: Eric Resch, Managing Director and Founder

PROJECT TIMELINE: June 2020

PROJECT SUMMARY: To keep all of our employees and customers safe, we shut down our cafes in mid-March due to the spread of Coronavirus. Since we weren’t going to be serving customers and our cafes held perishable products, we donated them to local food banks and shelters around Milwaukee. Donations included milk, bakery items, bottled beverages, and more.  

IMPACT UPDATE: Stone Creek Coffee donated hundreds of gallons of milk, fresh bakery, and bottle beverages to local food pantries and shelters across Milwaukee and Lake Country.

PROJECT LEADER: Karen Strange, Director of Retail

PROJECT TIMELINE: March 2020