Posted by christine, March 29, 2010

GOOD NEWS!

Because of Mocha Club members and friends who have purchased a “Ripple Effect” water bottle, we’ve already raised enough for 1,455 Africans to have clean water!

Help us keep it going…

Don’t have yours yet? Buy the bottle for $20.
Tell your friends! Send them to the World Water Day page and invite them to join Mocha Club and get the bottle free.
Check our World Water Day page to see the latest video from the Mocha Club Interns (”Mocha ‘Terns”) as they bring awareness to “Water Wasters” everywhere.
Send a letter to President Obama asking him to continue taking action to provide clean water to all the countries of Africa.

Posted in: CAMPAIGNS, Clean Water, Start the Ripple Effect | Comments (0)

Life on the Road: Volume 3 – Time Management

Posted by christine,

Mocha Club volunteer, Lauren, is currently out on tour with MC Sponsors Addison Road and Sanctus Real. She will be giving us insight to life on the road over the next few weeks. Read the intro to this series here.

Time management. I know, you just cringed too didn’t you? It’s not an easy thing. Actually, maybe it is for you, but for me, n1425600006_188570_5541 managing my time efficiently is a constant struggle.

I keep finding things about being on the road that reminds me of being in Africa. The biggest one is taking time to reflect on my day. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I don’t make time to. This is not an excuse. If you’ve been to Africa, or on any other service-related trip, maybe you understand this. You wake up and go, go, go, all day long, then you go to bed because it’s time to go to bed. This was my experience. I saw so many new and incredible things, yet I didn’t have time to reflect on and process each of those things because when my head hit the pillow, I was out. It’s the same for me out here on the road. I’m going, going, going, all day long, and having a blast doing it, but it’s hard to find time to reflect and process it all. For me, this is an important part of my life.

I am still learning from my trip to Africa. Not only am I learning from the experiences and people I met, I’m learning about myself. And I’m gathering that my experience being on the road is going to end up being the same way.

Lesson #2 learned from the road: Find and take the time to reflect on your day.

It’s easy to run from things happening in your life when you’re busy. Don’t run from them; stop and process them, confront them, be grateful for them. You’ll learn from them… now and tomorrow. I promise.

This is a cool job, y’all. Even when you don’t get to your hotel until 3:30am and have to be ready to go at 9:30am the next morning for a six hour drive to Chicago… it’s still pretty cool. If sacrificing a few hours of sleep can and will give clean water to Africans, count me in.

Posted in: ARTISTS, Interns & Volunteers, MC OFFICE NEWS | Comments (2)

Wrapping Up: The Mocha Experience Webisode 14

Posted by christine, March 23, 2010

…And that’s a wrap! Here are some answers to questions YOU asked Char & Skiff about their 3-month Mocha Club journey.

The Mocha Club Experience: Starting November 1, 2009, Seattle Pacific University recent graduates Daniel “Skiff” Skiffington and Charlie “Char” Beck visited all of Mocha Club’s current projects in 7 countries and took Mocha Club supporters and friends on a three-month virtual adventure to experience real life in Africa!

Posted in: AFRICA TRIPS, The Mocha Club Experience | Comments (2)

Life on the Road: Volume 2

Posted by christine,

This time, Lauren shares some fun photos from the road – enjoy!

This is Sanctus Real playing the first show of the tour in Albuquerque, NM. Behind the band it says, "Reaching the families of the earth" - I think that saying is appropriate for what this tour is all about!

A first for me! It was incredible. I was in the car with the Travis, Ryan G, and our drummer from Addison Road, and we collectively decided it was a good idea to play "Wide Open Spaces" by the Dixie Chicks while crossing the Dam. (Actually, it may have been my idea. Oh the things you get away with when you're the only girl!)

Mt. Rushmore - another first for me. Travis, me, Ryan Gregg, and Jeff and our friends George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe. This picture is one of my favorites from the trip so far. It sums up how most of our time has been spent; cracking up! (Well, except for the whole RV fire thing. That wasn't really funny.)

Little Annie Simmons & I enjoying a sunny day in Hanover, Indiana. Please notice her 'nose scrunch,' as we like to call it. Cutest.

Jenny Simmons from Addison Road & Mocha Club table worker Kimberly Paul in Waukesha, WI. It was great to meet an Addison Road Mocha Club team member!

Hannah Aschliman (MC representative) & I and the table workers in Wisconsin! A great night.

Stay tuned for more from Lauren soon!

Posted in: ARTISTS, Interns & Volunteers, MC OFFICE NEWS | Comments (1)

World Water Day – and the answer to the riddle!

Posted by christine, March 22, 2010

When thinking about water, we often take for granted just how large a role it plays in our lives. We drink it, cook with it, shower with it, and wash our hands with it. But these are only a few of its common uses. What about doing your dishes? Or laundry? Or brushing your teeth? Or even flushing the toilet? Can you imagine how much water we use in the normal functioning of our daily lives?

Now consider this: the amount of water used in one flush of a toilet is the same amount as an average person in Africa uses all day for washing, cleaning, cooking, and drinking.

In fact, 311 million Africans lack access to clean drinking water. That’s roughly 45% of the population. Some of you might be thinking this is because there is no water in Africa, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Only 4% of the total renewable water available in Africa is used yearly due to a lack of wells, pumps, reservoirs, and other irrigation systems. Shocking statistic, isn’t it?

World Water Day…

World Water Day grew out of a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1992 and is designed to highlight relevant issues pertaining to water including current challenges and global situations. The theme for 2010, “Clean Water for a Healthy World”, hopes to improve the global awareness of water quality and lower the total number of people who rely on unsafe sources of drinking-water, which now stands at 1.1 billion.

Today, March 22nd, is World Water Day, and in honor of this day, we want to do more to help provide clean water to Africa…introducing our “Start the Ripple Effect” stainless-steel water bottle!

Buy the water bottle for $20
and help give 15 Africans clean water.

Join Mocha Club and get the water bottle free!

When you buy a water bottle, 15 Africans get clean water. That means fewer women in Africa will have to walk six kilometers to collect water. And because of this, they won’t be carrying the 44 pounds of water that they normally carry on their heads that whole way. Think of what they could do with all the time and energy saved.

That’s not the bottle’s whole impact, though. Now, you can use your “Ripple Effect” water bottle instead of having to buy bottled water. You save money, and fewer plastic bottles end up in landfills, where they can take 1000 years to decompose. By refilling your water bottle from the tap, you save the energy and resources that otherwise would have been used to manufacture, ship, and dispose of plastic water bottles. With over 50 billion bottles of water being consumed yearly, that’s a lot of energy!