Clinton Foundation’s faceless Haitian coffee farmer. (Credit: The Clinton Foundation)
By: Amy Sterling Casil
(…) “I’m not an expert on Haiti. However, Haitians have been protesting the Clintons for years because they promised so much after the Haiti earthquake and delivered nothing. I worked with a legitimate start-up organization that wanted to develop a new way to holistically improve health and lives in the Caribbean. They weren’t focused on money, so much as on people.
Before that, I had been aware of the horrific deforestation problem in Haiti, one of the root causes of the country’s deep poverty.
So when I chose to revisit the Clinton Foundation website and its almost-daily “updates,” I chose to play the “Seeding Opportunity” game offered, and selected coffee farming.
The game is not very “fun” and one doesn’t learn much by “playing it” (scrolling from screen to screen while bland language appears beside the faceless Haitian coffee farmer, “ Stéphanie.” The action consists of Stéphanie blinking).
“Haiti has a deep history in coffee. In fact, we were once responsible for half the world’s coffee production,” Stéphanie tells me.
Stéphanie — she blinks.
The artwork on this is so bad that I think, of course they will even be killing good art too. Even the people who can afford to work for free for years won’t be able to continue with the Clampdown. Forget anyone who needs to be paid to do art, write, or play music.
I saw a Clinton supporter tell someone on Twitter to start a “Go Fund Me” for Haitians if they cared so much about them.
So anyway, what the Clinton Foundation is claiming it does to help farmers in Haiti is — well I’ll let Stéphanie tell you,
“Recently, we joined the Haiti Coffee Academy, co-founded by the Clinton Foundation and La Colombe. The Academy is a model coffee farm and training center where we attend trainings in basic agronomy, harvesting practices, and processing techniques.”
As with everything involving the Clinton Foundation, time is fluid. In this case, “recently” may mean 2011, 2012 or 2013. So what is this? The Clinton Foundation may or may not have made any type of financial gift to fund the Haiti Coffee Academy (note: according to Todd Carmichael’s obviously self-provided Wikipedia entry, the Clinton Foundation gave $350,000 in 2012 to PURCHASE THE PROPERTY where the Academy is located in Haiti). The information our faceless Haitian coffee farmer is providing comes from 2012, four years ago:
“The Clinton Foundation is working to grow Haiti’s coffee sector by bringing Haitian coffee to new markets and has facilitated new purchase agreements between Haitian coffee companies, cooperatives and international buyers. In 2012, the Foundation began work on the Haiti Coffee Academy with international coffee company La Colombe Torrefaction. With support from the Leslois Shaw Foundation, the Haiti Coffee Academy will be a model coffee farm and training center …”
La Colombe IS an American company founded 20 years ago when that could still happen. They do have an active website linking directly to the Haiti Coffee Academy website. And a Travel Channel show with founder Todd Carmichael. And, they are recorded as a Clinton Foundation donor of between $10,000 and $25,000 as is the other “project sponsor” the Leslois Shaw Foundation (between $100,000 and $250,000) donated to Clinton Foundation. The Les and Lois Shaw Foundation is based on a bequest from this Canadian gentleman who died in Barbados in — aka Shaw Industries aka mining, land development and “One of Canada’s best run companies!”
If I know my Clinton Foundation, there will be zero actual Foundation dollars going toward this “purchase” of land to guarantee the coffee production for the privately-owned Philadelphia based company. In Todd Carmichael’s 2011 Esquire profile, the Clinton Foundation supposedly was giving $34 MILLION toward this project. Really? It would be like them for that to be reduced to oh, say — $34. Maybe not even that. Why the hell should Bill Clinton pay for anything? Those women were all liars by the way.
OK, enough said. I have semi-comped this business and the most recent Inc. profile says it employs approximately 150 people, based in Philadelphia, PA. At its stated revenue of $35 million it is officially an SME. If you don’t know what that is, look it up. Those are what 70,000 more went out of business last year than started in this country.
People like Carmichael suck all the air out of the room. I can easily see how the incredibly stingy Clinton Foundation’s one-time $350,000 gift in 2012 that they are still taking credit for, could help this man take control of acreage and coffee production in Haiti.
Because that’s what it is.
Oh? The air out of the room? I just noticed these guys raised $28.5 million in venture capital from Goode Partners in 2014. They will have to pay that back. Likely soon.” (Read more: Amy Sterling Casil, 7/19/2016)