Hidden away in a nondescript warehouse in Stuart, Florida is a major coffee making operation that uses proceeds to give cars away to single moms, and help connect them with community partners. The couple behind this valiant effort is….
TW: I’m Tiana Wiles…
JW: I am Jeremy Wiles…
Both are filmmakers, and the coffee company, called Burly Man Coffee, is housed alongside their film company KingdomWorks Studios. They met in 2007…
TW: …in the jungles of the Philippines because we were filming a documentary.
They were documenting the lives of a barbaric indigenous tribe there! Fast forward a dozen years: they moved to Martin County last year. How did they find Stuart?
JW: Really it was just the palm trees and the beach. That’s what brought us here. We love this area and thought this would be a great to plant a company and raise a family.
TW: One day we said, let’s make coffee!
They already had a wholesale coffee operation going in South America…
JW: And we were using our contacts with the coffee growers in Ecuador to support an orphanage in Ecuador. We said, look we’ve got pretty good coffee – why don’t we bring that to the U.S.?
They named the online mail order service Burly Man Coffee.
TW: Burly to us is different from the definition that we hear today, you know, about being macho. To us being Burly is being kind. Kind of like your everyday hero with a beard on; masculine but kind... a gentleman. Is it possible to embody both? Well, we are hoping our coffee does that and our mission does that.
JW: We’re giving all of our profits away to support single moms.
Specifically, they give them cars.
JW: If you don’t have a car, you’re stuck. You can’t get to work. You can’t support your family. You can’t get to doctors’ appointments. It’s a really big deal! And it’s something that is easily overlooked. So that’s our mission, to give away cars to single moms. And then provide them with a support mechanism through these burly men that we match with the single moms so that they can continue the support after we leave.
They just gave away their first car to Celeste Bokstrom in Lake Worth.
TW: Celeste’s story stood out because of several things. For one thing, this single mom lives in a garage with her 16-year-old severely autistic son Logan. And she hasn’t had a car in over 4 years!
Next they matched her with a ‘burly man’ named Michael Cohen , the director of ‘Center for Brain’ located in Jupiter, Florida. They specialize in helping nonverbal kids with autism speak.
We ask to see the coffee operation! They lead us through their high-tech film offices and into a giant space filled with enormous stainless steel equipment and the delicious aroma of fresh roasted coffee! There are piles of burlap bags filled with raw, green coffee beans from South America.
JW: Hey Blake, can you cut one of these bags open?
(Sounds of bag being cut and hands mixing up beans.)
JW: So you can see – green coffee – it’s really odorless.
TOC: It is.
JW: Smell it.
TOC: It just smells like earth, kind of.
Next they go into the giant roaster…
TOC: It’s going in the top….
(roaster sounds)
TOC: That smells so good!
JW: Yeah. That’s what I love about it.
The roasts are called Tough As Nails, The Grizzly, Gentle Giant, Braveheart, and the Ax-presso. They package it up, ship it out, and proceeds buy cars for single moms!
Learn more here: www.burlymancoffee.com