Coffee By Design awards 2024 Rebel Blend Fund grants to 5 Maine arts projects

File Photo / Tim Greenway In 2019, Coffee By Design co-founders Alan Spear, front left, and Mary Allen Lindemann, front second from right, were pictured with Rebel Fund Grant recipients and representatives of Androscoggin Bank.

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By Alexis Wells

Coffee By Design, the Portland-based coffee wholesaler and retailer, will give $15,000 in grants to five Maine art projects from its Rebel Blend Fund.

The company recently announced this year's Rebel Blend Fund grant recipients and their projects:

Veeva Banga, "Coming to America," received $1,000. The project empowers immigrants to share their migration stories through art and movement with Portland locals. First, second, or third-generation immigrants and refugees can share their or family stories. Plans are being made for a performance at SPACE Gallery.
Victoria Mansion, "Reimagining the Lives of 'The Unwilling Architects,'" received $3,000. The project highlights research efforts that allow us to integrate the untold stories of enslaved individuals who made Victoria Mansion possible into our public programming.
Amanda Huatori Side x Side, "Outside these Walls," received $4,225. The project involves all fifth-grade students at Presumpscot Elementary and addresses the pressing need for equitable access to academic content and increased outdoor education in urban schools.
Molly Burk, Maine Inside Out Theater Projects, received $3,725. The projects engage young people in creating and sharing original theater, building culture and developing leadership in schools, prisons and communities across Maine.
Jordan Kendall Parks and JKP Studio, "Emergence: Art in a Free Surface," received $3,050. The funds will help with exhibition costs for the current year of "Emergence" but also supports a foundation for a repeating public art project, collaborating with trail systems and local artists for the next few years.

Coffee By Design, founded in 1994, has contributed more than $100,000 to Maine nonprofit arts organizations through the annual Rebel Blend Fund. It's supported by customer purchases of a special coffee blend that uses beans from the world's three major growing regions — Asia, the Americas and Africa.

For each pound of Rebel Blend sold or brewed at Coffee By Design locations, $1 goes into the fund, and the total amount from yearly sales is awarded to the winners.

"Since opening our doors 30 years ago, we have never waivered in our commitment to ethical practices, supporting the arts and progressive causes, and quality coffee," said Mary Allen Lindemann, the owner of Coffee By Design and a 2019 Mainebiz Woman to Watch.

"I am extremely proud of the support we have been able to provide through the Rebel Blend Fund. Thank you to our committee members Lauren Shugars, Samantha White, Alina Spear, Pat Nadeau and Liz Hurley, who reviewed the applications and decided where to distribute the funds."