Food service contributes during marches
Businesses donate to social justice causes
Food and beverage businesses — through customer support — have been committing financial backing to blackled organizations as protests over the death of George Floyd continue.
One of the latest examples is Colectivo Coffee, which is selling bags of an Ethiopian coffee blend this week called Unity and donating the proceeds to NAACP chapters in Milwaukee, Madison and Chicago, the cities where Colectivo has cafes.
Al Liu, the roaster’s vice president for coffee, said the company wanted to help raise awareness of the issues surrounding the protests — which erupted after the killing of Floyd, a black man, on May 25 by a Minneapolis police officer — while supporting the NAACP, founded in 1909 to fight for racial equality.
Colectivo is selling the coffee for $15.95 a pound on its website and at its reopened cafes, and giving 100% of the sales to the NAACP.
Tots on the Street, a food truck that makes stuffed potato tots, likewise will donate all of its proceeds from sales Tuesday to Urban Underground, a Milwaukee organization that works with youth on social justice campaigns. The fundraiser will be from 4 to 8 p.m.; the truck will be parked on East Oklahoma Avenue at Humboldt Park in Bay View.
Hot Knife, a weekly pop-up restaurant, designated all its sales last Friday at Burnhearts bar in Bay View to the
Milwaukee group BLOC, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities.
Pete’s Pops, whose West Vliet Street store was on the route of weekend demonstrations, designated half of its Sunday sales to the same organization. So did Flourchild, the new pizza pop-up, which gave BLOC half its Saturday sales and committed 10% of sales this week.
Meanwhile, among other food businesses contributing, Avenue Coffeehouse, a cafe at 911 Milwaukee Ave. in South Milwaukee, said on social media it would donate to a different organization every Sunday, and Anodyne is donating $1 from a lilac cold brew drink at its cafes and all sales from a pizza special at its Bay View cafe to the Black Voters Matter Fund and the Milwaukee group Love on Black Women.