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The Providence Granola Project
Jan. 21st, 2016 12:16 pmMy friend ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dudeshoes told me about a nonprofit that employed refugees to make granola. My first thought was, Yay! welcoming refugees! Followed by ... Making granola? It seemed sort of out of left field.
But then I asked myself, what kind of project would I imagine that would be better? I had some inarticulate sense that the project should highlight refugees' own cultures--but that's a tall order if you're bringing together people from many different countries. You want common ground. Granola is part of America's culinary heritage, so people can be learning something about their new home while simultaneously learning stuff relating to entrepreneurship in a friendly, fun way.
And granola is a good choice for marketing purposes: it's a food that sits in the overlap space of breakfast cereal and snack, ordinary daily item and small luxury. Unlike bread or cookies, it's got a long shelf life, so it makes a good item to ship. Oats, the base ingredient, aren't too expensive--unlike, say, chocolate.
I liked the name of the nonprofit, too: Beautiful Day. I went to the Granola Project page and ordered some bags. They were delicious! Full of enthusiasm, I ordered Christmas gifts for family members.
They sent me an end-of-year letter that came in this beautiful card:
All the people in the picture have stories. Devote, on the far right, is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and was on the run from militias for 17 years. Siyad, standing next to her, fled Somalia and spent 19 years in a refugee camp in Kenya. Vivian and Evon, the other two women, are Assyrian Christians from Iraq. And Kenneth Cooper, the executive director, was born in Vietnam during the war and lived in a different country each year of his childhood. He writes,
I really love this project now.
dudeshoes told me about a nonprofit that employed refugees to make granola. My first thought was, Yay! welcoming refugees! Followed by ... Making granola? It seemed sort of out of left field.But then I asked myself, what kind of project would I imagine that would be better? I had some inarticulate sense that the project should highlight refugees' own cultures--but that's a tall order if you're bringing together people from many different countries. You want common ground. Granola is part of America's culinary heritage, so people can be learning something about their new home while simultaneously learning stuff relating to entrepreneurship in a friendly, fun way.
And granola is a good choice for marketing purposes: it's a food that sits in the overlap space of breakfast cereal and snack, ordinary daily item and small luxury. Unlike bread or cookies, it's got a long shelf life, so it makes a good item to ship. Oats, the base ingredient, aren't too expensive--unlike, say, chocolate.
I liked the name of the nonprofit, too: Beautiful Day. I went to the Granola Project page and ordered some bags. They were delicious! Full of enthusiasm, I ordered Christmas gifts for family members.
They sent me an end-of-year letter that came in this beautiful card:
All the people in the picture have stories. Devote, on the far right, is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and was on the run from militias for 17 years. Siyad, standing next to her, fled Somalia and spent 19 years in a refugee camp in Kenya. Vivian and Evon, the other two women, are Assyrian Christians from Iraq. And Kenneth Cooper, the executive director, was born in Vietnam during the war and lived in a different country each year of his childhood. He writes,
Customers and supporters [have taken] a personal stake in extending hospitality (sometimes even jobs) to refugees. And, in an interesting sort of reversal, making and selling granola became a way for our refugee employees to extend hospitality to you, their new community.
I really love this project now.
