The great thing about craft beers drinkers is that most of them are intelligent and socially conscious. Most people that love and appreciate a good, well made, 'local' brew care about what is going on in the rest of the world. I enjoy being in the company of some enlightened craft beer drinkers.
Enter Beers for Books, an idea started by Gary Bremermann to help raise money for Room to Read and their mission to help educate children around the world. When you attend one of Beers for Book's events, some of the money you spend on a pint goes to buy books for children. It's a great idea and a great cause.
Here's a description of what Beer's for Books is, in Gary's own words:
Beers for Books (B4B) is a fun and simple fundraising idea to help raise money for Room to Read's local language book publishing program. It is something that anyone can do anywhere.
The idea is to approach your favorite bar/restaurant and ask them if they'd like to have a Beers for Books event. They say "yes" and you agree on a date. Then you promote the event like crazy to gather as many people as you possibly can to go there and have a good time. Sounds fun, right?
When the bar/restaurant agrees to host a Beers for Books event, they will take 100 yen from each beer sold that evening (they can also do it for all drinks too if that works for the venue) and donate it to Room to Read. Sounds simple, right?
The benefits to the bar/restaurant include bringing in new customers, creating community goodwill, and also happy employees because people love to work for places that do good.
Room to Read gets money for books and an expanding awareness of all of their efficiently-run programs focused on childhood literacy in developing countries.
You and your friends get to have a good time--it is a perfect win/win/win scenario.
All the tools needed to create a successful Beers for Books event are available on www.beersforbooks.org . This includes an organizer's manual, a "pitch" document for selling the idea to bars/restaurants, templates for posters/flyers/etc.
I met Gary at Grande Beer in Tokyo, and he was eager to talk about Beers for Books and passionate about the cause, and drinking good beer.
Here is the link to the events page where you can learn more about where you can go take part in one of B4B's functions. You can also join their facebook group and recieve updates that way. I hope to work with Gary to bring an event to Aichi, if you are in Aichi and wish to help--email me.
2 comments:
"The great thing about craft beers drinkers is that most of them are intelligent and socially conscious..." ...or Chuwy.
The beer selection (courtesy of Andrew and Nagano Trading) in Ginza wasn't very extensive but it was good. The bottles on hand that night were Racer 5 and West Coast IPA. on tap was the Ballast Point callico amber ale and man was it in fine form! That night was completely pakced. Way too many peolpe. Seeing it was in ginza and smart dress, it attracted so many suits and so also loads of hot, horny women! Everyone was checking out everyone else and somewhere in there, the founder of Beers 4 Books was supposed to be giving s speech, but I don't think anyone heard him, it was that busy and noisy and there was that much tail. I was and always am a good boy and had 4 or 5 beers, so somewhere, I hope I helped some poor kid out (by comparison with my meager finances - always broke!, it eclipsed what a lot of the other rich suits were willing to fork out.). I stayed as long as I could tolerate and ranks as much as I could, then got the f**k outta Dodge. Amazing support, but way too many people. Still, an interesting concept. Wish the bar donated half their profits instead. Or perhaps I could have jsut dropped 500yen in the jar and gone somewhere less busy for my booze. An interesting evening. Good luck to the whole concept. If it's to be held like this last event in a smart club in Tokyo, I think they should charge entry too, to squeeze more money out of those suits. They can afford it.
Good luck with your Aichi event.
Thanks DH for the B4B shout-out and thanks Chuwy for dropping by.
Sorry it got so crowded--I had no idea how many people loved the idea of having a tasty beer and creating a book for kids. We'll manage the crowds a bit better next time and hope to see you there.
For Beers for Books events we try to keep entry free and then encourage those who have the resources to pitch in for raffle prizes so that everyone can join in the B4B fun.
You definitely helped out a bunch of kids who will now have access to those 4 or 5 books you created--cheers!
Looking forward to a fun one in Aiichi soon. :-)
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