Over & Above 2023 Update

JJ Bean’s Over & Above initiative seeks to positively impact people in coffee growing regions in ways that go beyond our operating responsibilities as a roaster. We are truly thankful for the support and generosity of our customers, which enable us to do this.  

Here are a few program highlights from 2023 that we wanted to share with you:

Funding clean water access in Ethiopia

You helped us donate $10,729 to provide clean water access to communities in Ethiopia through Run For Water and imagine1day. We first partnered with both charities in 2017 to fund building a kindergarten and well. This led to an ongoing donation program to build wells annually with Run For Water over the last six years. In 2023 this initiative transformed into Roasters For Wells.

Roasters for Wells is a collaborative project between imagine1day in Ethiopia and five of Vancouver’s coffee roasters (Elysian, JJ Bean, Milano, Moja, and Pallet). The project aims to raise at least $75,000 toward purchasing a drilling rig that can produce 45 new water wells per year in Ethiopia. We have committed to matching donations up to $50,000, fundraising in our cafes and through the sales of Ethiopian single origin coffees during the campaign.

We are very excited to announce that a purchase order for the machine has been submitted, with 59% of the total necessary funds raised from all sources (roughly $185,000 of $308,425 CAD).

Click here to learn more about the Roasters For Wells campaign and donate.

Our other projects this year

In 2023, our domestic orders shipped via Canada Post became carbon-neutral through verified offsets, reducing greenhouse gas emission by 696 Kg CO2e.

Over $7235 was donated for disaster relief in Türkiye and Syria. During our emergency response fundraisers, our staff voluntarily contribute all tips collected on a specific day to a humanitarian cause and JJ Bean matches whatever is raised to double your impact.

JJ Bean continued to sponsor education for 10 girls in Kenya through CHES, a program we have been a part of for over a decade.

Our staff also helped raise $101 for the Vancouver Food Bank through a latte art competition.

In addition to our official Over & Above program, JJ Bean supports numerous local charitable and community needs through our cafes, fundraising program, food donations, and environmental initiatives. We do our best to keep track of as many of these as possible; you can learn more on our Over & Above page