Tadias Magazine
Events News

Thursday, September 15, 2011

New York (TADIAS) – Governor Martin O’Malley of Maryland will attend the inauguration of Blessed Coffee, a community-based organization in Silver Spring, established under the state’s Benefit Corporations law that creates a new class of businesses that are required to deliver a measurable positive impact on society while meeting higher standards of accountability and transparency. The event will take place on Friday September 16th, 2011, 11:30am to 1:30pm at the Gazebo (Carroll and Westmoreland Avenues) in Old Town Takoma Park.

Blessed Coffee, founded by Tebabu Assefa and Sara Mussie, is the second Benefit Corporation in the state and it pledges to allocate 50% of its net profits from wholesale revenue to social programs in the coffee-growing region and 50% of net profits from retail and coffee shop revenue to support more than a dozen associations in the greater Silver Spring-Takoma Park area. Maryland became the first state to pass Benefit Corp legislation in April 2010. Several states have followed suit since then.

Organizers say the event will feature traditional Ethiopian music and coffee ceremony. Guest speakers include State Senator Jamie Raskin (D-20, Silver Spring and Takoma Park), Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-Founder of B Lab, as well as Tadesse Meskela, Founder and Manager of the Oromia Coffee Farmers Cooperative — a 200,000-member farmers union in Ethiopia, which was the subject of the documentary Black Gold.
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If You Go:
Friday, September 16, 2011
11:30 to 1:30pm
Gazebo (Carroll and Westmoreland Avenues)
Old Town Takoma Park.
Silver Spring, Maryland