Hourglass Café adds a shot of social concerns to its late-night java

By Kate Bramson

Parents on campus this weekend can check out a new café dedicated to raising money to fight hunger for Oxfam America and to raising the social consciousness on campus.

But students have already begun congregating at the Hourglass Café in the Bear’s Lair (left), which is the result of nearly two years of work by the Oxfam America branch at Brown. The student group holds several fundraisers each year to help Oxfam America create lasting solutions to hunger, poverty and social injustice.

The café, the Brown group’s newest fundraising project, is modeled after one that opened at Tufts University 15 years ago. The Hourglass Café sells Fair Trade coffees and teas, vegetarian selections and bakery products. Coffee that’s certified as Fair Trade is sold through a system that guarantees fair wages for coffee farmers and fair prices for their crops.

Organizers estimate about 200 students turned out for the café’s opening on Oct. 4 and about 50 students were there each night of the café’s first full week in business. The students behind the scenes at the Hourglass — eight student managers and about 20 volunteers — are excited about what they’ve created and are still adjusting to the café’s reality.

"I kept thinking it was hitting me in the week before the café opened," general manager and Oxfam co-president Robyn Neff said. "But it was truly not until opening night, when we saw the huge crowd that was there, that we realized we had garnered a lot of support in the community and that people were excited about it."

In addition to the Fair Trade label, the coffee, tea and some of the café’s food selections are also organic, food manager Margie Kwoka said. The fare is vegetarian, all the drinks can be made vegan with soy milk, and the students are working to get vegan baked goods, she said.

"I think the fact that we’re trying to make food a socially conscious decision makes people feel good about what they’re eating," Kwoka said.

The Hourglass Café is in the Graduate Student Center in the space formerly occupied by Jitters Coffee Bar. It’s typically open Sundays through Thursdays from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., but it will also open Oct. 27 from noon to 4 p.m. for parents visiting campus.

The students plan to donate the café’s profits to Oxfam America each semester, said Laura Brezin, co-president of Oxfam at Brown and the café’s volunteer manager.

Brezin thinks they’ll definitely have a profit at the end of this semester, but organizers haven’t set a goal yet, she said.

They’re also hoping the café will "be a hub of student activities and hopefully more social-justice type groups would want to meet there," Brezin said.

Oxfam America didn’t learn about the café right away because Brown students worked independently of the national organization and worked instead with students at the Tufts café, said Nancy Delaney, the national outreach coordinator for Oxfam America. That speaks volumes of the Brown students’ commitment to Oxfam, she said.

"We all were very impressed by the fact that they worked this peer-to-peer collaboration with students that they didn’t otherwise know," Delaney said. "We love to see those things happen. When we became involved, it was merely as a secondary resource."

The organization has no set expectations of what the Brown students may raise, she said.

"Places like the café offer an additional opportunity beyond fundraising," Delaney said. "That is raising awareness."

She calls it a "wonderful multiplier effect" when a student who may know nothing about Fair Trade enters a café like the Hourglass for a cup of coffee and in the process learns about Oxfam, Fair Trade and the organization’s mission.

The Brown administration has been supportive of the students’ efforts from the beginning, Brezin said. It was David Inman, director of student activities, who told Oxfam members they could use the space that had been empty since Jitters closed, she said. It was Donald Reaves, executive vice president for finance and administration, whose office donated the $3,000 for the machine to read Brown cards so people can use their declining balance accounts at the café.

And "the Office of Student Life ended up being very supportive of it, hoping it would do something for community at Brown, and they gave us $1,000," Brezin said.

Oxfam students raised an additional $1,000 for start-up expenses, she said. They met with University Food Services, explained their cause and received that department's support, Neff said.

Hourglass operates under the food license of University Food Services.

It never occurred to Food Services not to work with the students, said Ann Lawrence, associate director of the department. Food Services offered advice on operating a café and choosing food products, and instructed the students to get trained in food safety, which they did, she said.

"It seemed like a no-brainer to me because they’re a great group of enthusiastic people, their hearts are in the right place, and they’re supporting a cause that I think all of us would agree is worthwhile," Lawrence said.

Hoping to appeal to a broader audience than just those at Brown already familiar with Oxfam, the student organizers decided not to name their café after Oxfam, Brezin said.

"It’s named in tribute of an old Parents Weekend project," she said.

That project was a 12-foot-tall hourglass created by engineering students in 1994 for an Oxfam fundraiser that went on to raise about $3,000 each year for the next six years. Filled with tens of thousands of marbles, the hourglass dropped one marble every 2.5 seconds. Back then, a child died of hunger or hunger-related causes every 2.5 seconds. (It’s about every 4.4 seconds now, Brezin said.)

Oxfam’s Delaney is impressed by the administrative support the café has received. Not all student groups are offered space for such endeavors, and contractual arrangements with campus dining services can make opening alternative eating areas difficult, she said.

"It’s important to recognize one of the reasons why I think this café was able to be opened on the Brown campus was not only because of the determination by the Oxfam at Brown group but also the collaboration of the dining service and the administration," Delaney said.