Circa Pict. & Prod. Co. Intnl Inc. (fka CPPD)

[skunksyard]

and gay coffee....

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Feb/02092003/sunday/27025.asp

Coffee Company Brews Up Cash for Gay Charities




Female impersonator Jon "Flo" Koop is pictured on bags of coffee marketed by GayCoffees. (Charlie Riedel/The Associated Press)
BY STEVE BRISENDINE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAWRENCE, Kan. -- The name -- GayCoffees -- seems certain to cause some controversy.
So do some of the slogans and promotions attached to the company's custom-roasted blends. After all, when was the last time you walked down the supermarket aisle and saw a bag of Fetish Beans, complete with the flag of the leather pride movement?
"The tag line for that one is, 'Whipping the charity out of you,' " said GayCoffees co-founder and president Catherine Kelly. "People in the leather community just love it."
Kelly isn't trying to shock people. She's just using coffee and an edgy marketing campaign to do her part for charity, in particular, causes that benefit the lesbian, gay and bisexual community.
"This is just a way to raise money," said Kelly, who founded GayCoffees in June 2002 as an offshoot of the public relations company she owned with Kevin Powell. He's GayCoffees' vice president.
GayCoffees' beans are custom-roasted in Topeka, Kan. Fund-raising groups and charities order bags from the company, which gets between $1.75 and $2 per bag while the roaster gets $4.
When the coffee is resold, the rest goes to the charity.
GayCoffees also sells its beans online and at a handful of retail outlets, with 40 percent of the $10 sale price going to designated charities.
"I don't know of very many businesses who give that percentage of their proceeds to charity. Usually, it's 2 percent, 3 percent" said Jon "Flo" Koop, a female impersonator from Kansas City, Mo., who is the namesake for the blend called "Flo's Joe" and whose picture appears on the bag.
GayCoffees' target charities include the American Foundation for AIDS Research, the Kansas City Free Health Clinic, Kansas Pride and the Kansas City Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.
"It's been a slow process, but we're operating in the black," Kelly said.
The company, now based in Kansas City, Mo., has its roots in Lawrence, where Kelly and Powell met in the late 1990s while working at a public relations firm. Kelly later recruited Powell to join a dot-com in Kansas City before the two struck out on their own.
Powell, who isn't gay, said he could sense Kelly's passion for the project from the outset.
The company got a boost before the holidays when Out magazine featured GayCoffees' Freedom Beans in its holiday gift guide.
The only catch, Kelly said, is that some people only buy -- or are given -- just one bag, treating the coffee as a collector's item rather than a consumable product.
"We don't want it sitting around," she said. "We want people to use it."
GayCoffees will soon wrap up its first "Miss GayCoffees" competition, in which female impersonators in Kansas City, Mo., Seattle and Wichita, Kan., vie to sell the most bags of "Flo's Joe" for the American Foundation for AIDS Research.
The winners will have their pictures displayed on bags of coffee for one year and be able to designate which charity receives proceeds from the next competition.
"I had my doubts at first, because I didn't realize the scope of what it was going to be," Koop said. "The name GayCoffees kinds of throws you off, but it's not just for the gay community."
GayCoffees also did a special limited-edition blend last year to benefit a shelter for battered women, and proceeds from bags of the decaf "Pink Ribbon Roast" will benefit breast cancer research.
First, though, GayCoffees must find a charity willing to accept money from the sale of Pink Ribbon Roast.
Turned down by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the National Breast Cancer Foundation, the company is now conducting a "May the Breast Charity Win" campaign.
A spokeswoman for the Komen foundation said it turns down most requests for affiliations, and GayCoffees' request was rejected because the company does not have a national retail presence.
That doesn't deter Kelly.
"We'll just keep collecting money until we find a charity that does our community the most good," she said.