Manchester coffee shops donate money to charity for every cup bought this week

UK Coffee Week is coming to Manchester from April 16th – 22nd, and this year is set to be bigger than ever. The nationwide celebration of the UK’s thriving coffee industry raises money to bring clean water and sanitation to coffee growing communities around the world.

Speciality coffee shops across Manchester – including Rapha, Grindsmith, ManCoCo, Takk, Coffee Cranks and Ziferblat – are donating money to Project Waterfall for every cup of coffee bought by customers.

Project Waterfall is a charity that works to deliver clean drinking water and sanitation to coffee growing communities across the globe. Since starting, the charity has raised over £800,000, changing over 27,000 lives.

“We are delighted to be supporting Project Waterfall during UK Coffee Week,” says Darren Dawson of the ManCoCo coffee shop just off Deansgate.

“During the week we will be pledging a donation for every cup of coffee we sell, asking our customers to donate, and also running a ‘guess the number of coffee beans in the jar’ competion. Top Prize will be one our reusable bamboo coffee cups and a free coffee every day for a month.

“We’re really keen to support efforts to provide our coffee growers with permanent access to clean water,” says Darren

“It’s something we take for granted here, but is essential to us and our business. Everybody deserves this. Helping provide this basic human right will make the lives of our coffee growers healthier, happier and more fulfilling, and this something we should always strive for.”

Coffee is one of the largest and most powerful industries in the world, pouring £9.6bn into the UK economy. Last year alone saw a further 1,215 coffee shops open – an average of 3.4 new stores per day.

UK Coffee Week provides a chance for this booming industry to give back to the communities that grow its precious beans. In 2017, over £335,000 was raised during UK Coffee Week and as a result, donations have been used to fund a tri-country education project in schools across Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya, in partnership with WaterAid UK.

This year it hopes to top that, with 100% of proceeds going to Project Waterfall’s latest project in the Jabi Tehnan district of Ethiopia. This project will bring clean drinking water and sanitation to over 7,000 people over the next 4 years.

“UK Coffee Week is all about the celebration of coffee and uniting the industry with its customers to raise valuable funds for millions of people across the globe that rely on the product to fund their livelihoods,” says Jeffrey Young, founder of UK Coffee Week.

“It’s important to support the provenance of our caffeine fix and give something back to those that help our country thrive both culturally and financially.”

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