By Chris Muphy
Volenté Coffee – Coffee with a Mission.
The ViewCrew is all about good local coffee. There are some great local coffee roasters that really have some amazing beans and flavors. Coffee is like wine, olive oil and other great foods and flavors that have characteristics based on the type kind of fruit and diverse origins. The Modesto Gospel Mission has a goal to transition people from the streets and addiction into homes and a new life, and these delicate coffee beans with a personality are playing an important role here in Modesto.
Jason Conway and Scott Pernice had a new business idea and working with the Stanislaus Community Foundation with a grant from the Porges Family Foundation, they have built a new social enterprise business with a social impact and benefit; importing and roasting coffee for sale in our community to make it a sustainable business and they landed on the name Volante, meaning “willing or wanting”.
Enter our friend Tony Serrano, Modesto’s coffee expert and trainer who is helping educate, like he always does, about the world and the intricacies of coffee. He began to work with Ron, who is a resident and has fought addition and is now two years sober, and found that he had a great talent for flavors and the roasting process, which is very much both an art and a science. As a result, delicious coffee with rich open flavors are now being sold by Volente. Varieties of imported beans are managed, blended to great fresh and light coffees.
Volente coffee is now sold at the Bake Shop in downtown Modesto and is available on-line for home delivery. Their goal is to make retail and wholesale product and even provide remote coffee services. They set up every week on the Gallo Winery campus to prove the business model.
We need more programs and ideas like this. Volante is creating jobs on campus with additional roasting support. These are the things that change our community and create long-lasting change.
Please take a minute and check out their website and even order a couple of pounds of coffee. It’s wonderful and will make a real difference in many ways.
