Forest Park coffee shop promotes Black Lives Matter movement with special blend, helps kids
Forest Park coffee shop began selling BLM blend after death of George Floyd
FOREST PARK, Ill. (WLS) -- A Forest Park coffee shop owner has a special blend of coffee that's sparking conversations about race and helping kids.
"This is our own little way from coffee to make an impact," said Jacques Shalo, the owner of Kribi Coffee.
Last summer the coffee shop began selling the Black Lives Matter blend in response to the killing of George Floyd.
"What's going on today with the disenfranchisement of our race, people of color, I see it as something that goes deep in centuries back to the continent," he said.
Shalo is originally from Cameroon, a country in central Africa.
"My great grandparents would have been caught into slavery had they not moved from one part of the country into another," he said.
A portion of the sales from each bag of the Black Lives Matter blend goes to Tutoring Chicago. The organization provides educational programming for students from low-income backgrounds.
"Being around for 55 years we have seen our students leave our program and continue to excel at the high school level and then either at the college level or in the workforce," said EL Da' Sheon Nix, the community relations director for Tutoring Chicago.
Shalo said his customers support his efforts to help reduce inequality. He hopes to create more coffee blends to help other groups and organizations.
The Black Lives Matter blend is available in-store and on Kribi Coffee's website.
"We have gotten feedback from many customers, how much they really like it, and they are very, very excited about, to be, socially impacting the movement," Shalo said.
