Ethics and Values: September 2005 Archives

John Sage, the co-founder of Pura Vida Coffee, spent the day at Belmont University yesterday. John has created a for profit coffee company with a mission that mandates they donate all of their profits back to help the children of the countries that supply their coffee.

Pura Vida is 100% charitably owned. All of our resources go to help at-risk children in coffee-growing countries who suffer from the damaging effects of poverty.

An interesting business model to say the least! They offer any investors only the possibility of a modest financial return (at best) capped at about a T-Bill rate. They believe that the good that they can do through the capitalistic system more than makes up for any shortfall in profit returns to their investors.

Here are a couple of examples that show the good in people in the aftermath of Katrina:

Business owners in Montgomery, AL are helping to defray the costs of all of the refugees that have come to their city from the gulf coast.

From Inc.com:

Spared the physical trauma of hurricane, Montgomery's business community is helping bear the cost of hosting Katrina's victims who have come in need of medicine, health care, shelter, and jobs. Anna Buckalew of the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce expects this labor of love to last for several months as federal agencies sort out recovery and rebuilding of Gulf cities affected by Katrina.

Colleges and universities are helping to find temporary places for the 100,000 college students displaced by the storm to continue their studies.

From USA Today:

The school of public health at Atlanta's Emory University has arranged for 30 international graduate students from Tulane's school of public health to attend classes temporarily. Jesuit universities, including Connecticut's Fairfield University, the University of San Francisco and Seattle University, are taking students from New Orleans' Loyola, also a Jesuit school. The University of Richmond said it will accept about 20 undergraduates and several law students tuition-free for the fall semester.

We are hearing so much about the bad acts of people in New Orleans. I hope that over time it is the good acts like these that we will remember from these difficult times.