Businesses that help the community by “gifting for good.”

For some Hagerstown businesses, charities really do begin at home

Written by PAULETTE LEE

hen it comes to gift-giving, we’ll typically think about the tastes and interests of the person to whom we’re giving either something we buy or make, or perhaps an experience we think the recipient will enjoy. Barring our knowledge of the recipient’s preferences, there’s always cash. However, there are ways to extend the impact of a gift by “gifting for good”— supporting an enterprise whose business model extends beyond profit-making to helping a community, from local to international.

Ten Thousand Villages

(Pennsylvania Ave., north of Maugans Ave., Hagerstown)

Ten Thousand Villages – which has been in Hagerstown 44 years, though not always in the current location on Pennsylvania Avenue – is part of a nationwide network of nonprofit retail stores that uses a particular fair-trade approach to marketing handcrafted products from around the world. These “purposeful goods and gifts crafted by hand for home and life”, as the organization describes them, are made by members of more than 100 artisan groups – mostly women – in more than 35 countries. The Hagerstown store has items from 30 countries and store manager Carolyn Raber sums up their nonprofit mission by saying, “We’re working to help people get out of and stay out of poverty.”

Representatives of the Ten Thousand Villages organization, headquartered in Akron, Ohio, visit the workshops in-country, interact with the artisans as they work, and provide feedback on how to improve safety and health standards. A fair wage pricing agreement, based on local cost of living, is arrived at with the artisans, who are paid pay 50 percent up front as an interest-free advance to enable them buy supplies and protect them from exploitative loans. Safe and equitable working conditions are established and the makers are paid in full, including shipping, before they export in order to ensure they incur no financial risk.

Raber says most of her products are through Ten Thousand Villages, but not all are. She insists, though, that other suppliers meet rigorous Fair Trade Certified standards that ensure safe and healthy working conditions, no child or forced labor, fair compensation and environmental protections. She also is committed to supporting nonprofits locally, with periodic promotions whereby prices are lowered on products whose sale helps local causes. Stones with inspirational sayings from Kenya have supported breast cancer awareness; lip balm from Zambia and soaps from India have helped victims of domestic abuse; fair trade, imported chocolate bars have been gifted to first responders.

Brooke’s House Coffee & Chocolate

(South End Shopping Center, Maryland Ave., Hagerstown)

If you’re interested in gifting luxury chocolates that do more than just being beautiful and delicious, you can do so at Brooke’s House Coffee and Chocolate shop in Hagerstown’s South End Shopping Center on Maryland Avenue. The café supports Brooke’s House, named after the late daughter of founders Kevin and Dana Simmers, which is a “community-based, safe, stable, and emotionally supportive living environment for adult women in the early stages of substance abuse recovery.”

The café is staffed by program participants, including program graduate Tara Goetze, who is manager of the chocolate side and has been working there since the facility opened in December of 2021. Goetz lived at Brooke’s House for seven months, and then went into a transitional program, and then into transitional housing, and now has her own place and more importantly, her children.

“I wasn’t in any condition to be a parent, and I couldn’t hold a job because I was getting high or had a record. This program changed my life a lot,” Goetze shares, adding she has been “clean” now for almost two years. The café also hosts an open AA meeting for women only, Wednesdays at 7 p.m.

All the chocolates, fudge and caramels are made and packaged on-site, and can be customized. Their coffee – plus barista training – comes from Washington County’s first and so far only high-end craft coffee roaster and retailer.

River Bottom Roasters

Motto: “Better Beans, Better World”

After tasting his first “really good cup of coffee” at a coffee shop on the Eastern Shore, where his family had a dessert shop in Salisbury, and finding out nothing had been added to it, River Bottom Roasters (RBR) owner Craig Campbell began his coffee education. Early on, he learned the differences between “first wave” coffee – good beans (such as Robusta and Arabica) that are brewed and drunk;

Ten Thousand Villages, a Hagerstown mainstay, features goods and gifts from more than 100 artisan groups.

Tara Goetze displays chocolate charcuterie board at Brooke’s House Coffee & Chocolate.

River Bottom Roasters owner Craig Campbell works the roaster. “second wave” coffee – flavorful specialty drinks as introduced by Peet’s and Starbucks; and “third wave” coffee” – craft-roasted beans that RBR produces.

“We use roasting techniques that pay attention to the varietal of the bean,” Campbell explains, “how to roast it so you extract the flavored nuance of that particular bean, such as high elevation Guatemala beans, or mid-level Indonesian beans. We also pay attention to other factors, such as how fermentation, which occurs at the time the bean is harvested before it’s pulped, affects the flavor profile.”

After being a missionary in Peru, Campbell wanted to find a way to support impoverished regions, and “coffee was the common denominator.”

“Farmers weren’t being paid what their coffee was worth,” he explains, “so I started working with a fair trade importer who worked with ethically sourced and environmentally friendly coffee producers. I’ve since established direct relationships with farmers and have helped them increase their profit by almost four times.”

Campbell works with coffee-growing cooperatives in Peru, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Sumatra (Indonesia) and Colombia and insists that his products be ethically sourced as per USDA Organic, or UTZ (now part of the Rainforest Alliance) certification. In addition to helping coffee producers internationally, Campbell also gives a “good portion” of his proceeds to supporting the local community, through fundraising, sponsorships and volunteerism.

Starting out four years ago with a small roaster in the garage of his Williamsport home, and sharing his coffee with friends and neighbors to rave reviews, Campbell expanded into having four employees in 400 square feet of co-located space in a warehouse-type building on South Mulberry Avenue and Washington Street in Hagerstown. A big expansion step is in the works: construction is underway on a 4-thousand square facility in Williamsport, slated to open in early 2023.

Robert (Bob) Travis, owner of Simply Blessed Treasures, has plans to turn his new store into more than just a gift shop.

Simply Blessed Treasures

(Village Green, Longmeadow and Leitersburg Pike, Hagerstown)

While Campbell is looking forward to “upsizing,” Dee Biller downsized. The former owner of “D&J Treasures” that she and her late husband owned in Waynesboro, moved the store into much smaller quarters in Hagerstown, re-named it, and then sold it to her daughter, who in turn sold it earlier this year (2022) to one of their vendors, Robert (Bob) Travis.

Travis has a larger picture in mind than “just” a retail gift shop. For him, it’s an opportunity to showcase and support local vendors by selling their hand-made creations, products, and repurposed upscale items. With currently 20 vendors in limited space, including the well-known McCutchen apple products of Frederick, there’s a wide variety of products, all sourced locally. Travis hopes to focus on crafts and expand into mostly handmade items, and he’s always willing to see what creators have to offer: “I like that stuff…that people take the time to make.”

When you learn a little more about Travis, it’s no surprise that he is open to people, creativity and being welcoming. Recently widowed, he is now a single father of 15 children – 11 of whom he and his late wife adopted – with six still at home, the youngest being only six years old. This, all the while he still works full-time in addition to being the new owner of a store where you can buy gift for good by supporting local crafters and producers.