Ocoee cafe featured on Today Show

For its Nov. 25 “Small Business Saturday” segment encouraging American consumers to support small, local businesses with their shopping on the day after Black Friday, the “Today Show” featured House Blend Cafe of Ocoee.

Not only is House Blend Cafe a ‘mom-and-pop shop.’ Its owners, Josh and Kelly Taylor, have a mission of giving 100% of the cafe’s net profits to charity.

“We try not to get involved in things where it’s just about money,” Josh said. “We’re also trying to raise money to provide for our community and get out and serve together. We try to raise awareness in things we do. That’s our goal: to get involved in things where we’re encouraging others to get out and serve, shift the focus from life being all about me to putting others above self. That’s our t-shirt and our design that puts others above self.”

That mission of investing all profits back into the community set House Blend Cafe apart from other businesses the show’s producers might have featured for the segment.

“With it being Small Business Saturday and the holidays, they wanted to feature a business that was giving back, and there’s a lady who does freelance work for them who lives here in town,” Josh said. “She got word from the producers that that’s the story they wanted to run; she thought of us.”

Her interest came as a surprise to Josh when he answered her call.

“When she initially called, she called right in the middle of lunch, so we were hopping with lunch business,” he said. “She said, ‘This is Lisa from the Today Show,’ and I was like, ‘What? Nah! What do you mean by “Today Show?” The “Today Show?”’ And she said yeah.”

The next morning, a crew from the show met with the Taylors and filmed them in various environments, from the bustle of their cafe to feeding the poor and a hydroponics garden.

“We’re in the process of building an aquaponics pond to go feed the people,” Josh said. “The goal there is to create sustainable food systems that we’d like to take to other countries where they’re used to a model of growing rice and beans over and over again, and to create a system that people can maintain.”

The whole filming process with the show was rapid and happened in the course of a day, he said.

“From the time they first contacted us to the time we were done shooting was about 24 hours — it was all bang, bang, bang,” Josh said. “And it ran a few days later. It was very out of the blue, and I’d say we give God the glory.”

The philosophy of the House Blend Cafe is to make a difference by changing lives and changing the world, Josh said.

“Sounds big, but we’re in the process of partnering with Axum Coffee, which is in downtown Winter Garden,” he said. “The full goal is to be able to make as much money as we can to give away. Our goal is that by 2018 we’re giving away a million dollars a year to social justice causes formally, and then for that number to continue to grow. We wanted to get involved in something that is relational and build relationships with people in the community, so that through those relationships we could raise awareness of various causes internationally. More importantly, some of the things we’re passionate about here: east Winter Garden is a big deal, just east of Ninth Street, it’s kind of a rough area of town: high crime, drugs, that sort of thing going on. So we can get people out in the community and encourage kids and families to make a difference right there, in their backyards.”

Two of the primary issues the cafe staff passionately focuses on are clean water and human trafficking.

“There is more slavery today than there has ever been in history,” Josh said. “Current statistics still show that close to 20,000 children die every single day because they don’t have access to things we take for granted: clean water, very basic medications and things like that. Kids are drinking water out of puddles that animals have gone to the bathroom in, so they get sick and die because they can’t go to the hospital or anything. Those are two things we’re passionate about and think we can have a big impact in.”

How big of an impact? After starting with projects such as providing clean water for about 400 Ethiopian orphans in February 2013, the cafe has a longterm vision of giving away almost $1 billion per year, perhaps 40 years from now, Josh said.

“With that kind of backing, we could go into any country and make change, regardless of what government is in charge,” he said. “A lot of the injustices you see around the world are because of general oppression.”

Josh also said he would look to involve the cafe in anything caring for orphans, widows, the hungry and the oppressed.

For anyone hungry in the area, whether they are capable of affording food, the House Blend Cafe will be there to serve it.

To see the video of House Blend Cafe on the “Today Show,” as well as get more information on the cafe, visit houseblendcafe.com.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].