THE NOSSA FAMILIA GIVEBACK PROGRAM

Community Vision, Inc works to make Oregon a place where all people with disabilities can live, work, and thrive in whatever communities they choose. They offer a network of services, including supported living, homeownership, asset development, youth programs and employment services. For several years Nossa Familia has partnered with Community Vision to offer work to participants of their Employment Connections Program. This program pairs people with disabilities who are seeking employment and skill development with businesses who have a need for workers – the perfect match. In summer 2018 we opened our accessibility-minded Seven Corners Café in the new Seven Corners Collaborative building, Community Vision’s headquarters in Southeast Portland.

Since 2013 Nossa Familia has been working with p:ear, a non-profit dedicated to building positive relationships with homeless and transitional youth through education, art, and recreation. Nossa Familia facilitates the p:ear Barista School, which teaches youth the science and art of preparing and serving coffee. In addition to focusing on the tools necessary to become a barista, this eight-week course also incorporates significant job and life skills, identifies the students’ aspirations and self-defined goals, and provides them with resources upon graduation, including letters of recommendation and certification. Beyond just a creating a safe and welcoming environment for the youth, this program offers consistent, on-going mentorship and creative support. The p:ear barista school helps to build new patterns of behavior, break isolation, work to get kids off of dangerous dependencies, and create opportunities for economic gain and healthier lives.

Central City Coffee sourced, roasted and sold coffee as a means to support the mission of its parent organization, Central City Concern until January of 2021. They worked to provide solutions to ending homelessness and achieving self-sufficiency, including teaching transferable job skills to help formerly homeless individuals find and retain employment. Nossa Familia was proud to store and roast Central City's coffee, as well as donate production space in our roasting facility. We also partnered with them for events, and featured their coffee at our farmers markets and in the Nossa Espresso Bar.

Nossa Familia encourages volunteering as a way to strengthen community, internal staff relationships, and personal growth for individual employees. To help enable our employees to volunteer in the community, we offer 16 hours of paid volunteer time annually to all permanent employees. We organize staff volunteer opportunities and offer flexibility in scheduling to allow our employees to volunteer in the community.

At the Nossa Familia roasting facility we routinely amass: grain-pro agricultural bags (strong, gas-barrier plastic bags); pallets (building a compost bin, anyone?); and coffee grounds – these typically go directly into our compost, but we can bag grounds over the course of a few days for you. If any of these items are of interest to you, please email general@nossacoffee.com with your specific request to determine what is available and coordinate a time for pickup.

At Nossa Familia, we’re all about the connections that coffee inspires and the friendships that result. We love to share our coffee knowledge with others, welcoming people into the exciting world of cupping and educating people about where and who coffee comes from. We offer a farm-to-cup coffee talk & cupping (tasting) covering the process of sourcing, roasting, and tasting coffee for quality. Please email: general@nossacoffee.com to learn more.