Bees Without
Borders will host their first
local fundraiser of the year at
Fat Cat Pie Company on Wall
Street in Norwalk, on Friday,
October 17th from 6
to 9:30pm. A $50 ticket will
grant you an evening of music,
dinner and a raffle, emceed by
the Bees Without Borders
Founding Director, Andrew
Coté. The guests
of honor will be the bees
themselves, (secured inside
their hive of course).
Fat Cat is located at
9-11 Wall Street in Norwalk.
For more information or
to make a reservation, email
tess@beeswithoutborders.org.
To purchase tickets to
the event online visit:
The event will feature the
three-piece rock/blues/funk group,
The Fairfield Trio with Jamie
Debicella, Nate Whittaker and Eric
Mulkeen. The band includes
electric
guitar, Rhodes Piano/Hammond
Organ, and a
drum set.
The group’s musicians are all
members of the Fairfield University
Jazz Ensemble lead by Brian Torff.
For more information visit
www.myspace.com/thefairfieldtrio.
Fat Cat Pie Company will provide
artisanal pizzas and their
outstanding wine/ beer menu as well
as a cash bar. The
evening will also extend a raffle of
items donated by Fairfield County
Businesses and organizations.
The proceeds from this event will be
used to sponsor a beekeeping
project Bees Without Borders is
planning to
Uganda in January 2009 to
train beekeepers to expand their
operations. Details will be
presented at the event. BwB is also
negotiating beekeeping projects with
another Norwalk-based charity,
Norwalk-Nagarote Sister-City, as
well as a second project in another
area of Uganda, a project in Fiji,
and one particularly tricky one in
northern Pakistan.
“These projects are all on the table
and in negotiation,” said
Coté. “ BwB simply
wants to make the most of volunteer
time and sponsor resources, to make
sure that projects are not just a
flash in the pan, but viable,
sustainable, practical, and
beneficial to the community at
large.”
Coté is a former
high school dropout and vagabond
turned Fulbright Scholar and
professor. He was born into a
beekeeping family in Connecticut
and is (at least) the 4th
generation to carry on this
ancient art. When he's not busy
with hives,
Coté teaches
English as a Second Language at
Housatonic Community College and
runs
Silvermine Apiary,
home of Andrew's Taste-Bud
Bursting Local Wildflower Honey.
Through the U.S. State
Department’s USAID,
Coté volunteered
to go to Iraq for the summer of
2005 to assist Iraqi
beekeepers. In 2007 he spent
the summer in the Niger Delta
teaching beekeeping. He spent
January of 2008 in Kerala and
Tamil Nadu in southern India,
bring beekeeping skills to a
small village cooperative.
“BwB can only expand with the
continued support of our 100%
volunteer staff, and contributions,”
added
Coté. “If you can
help with anything; legal advice,
web page building, stuffing
envelopes, massaging the beekeeper's
aching muscles - BwB always welcomes
new additions to our hive.”
Bees Without Borders a 501 (c) (3)
status pending non-profit
organization, brings the value of
beekeeping to low-resource
individuals and communities in the
developing world, allowing people to
increase their income while
maintaining their dignity and
improving the environment.
Through education and
training, we provide low-income
clients with the skills they need to
maintain healthy beehives and offer
bee-related products to developing
markets.
When
Coté was asked why
he loves bees, he answered, “Bees
are nearly perfect! They are artful,
delicate yet resilient, modest and
hardworking; they seemingly pluck
honey from the air and create a
beautiful, tidy world from virtually
nothing. Bees continually humble me
and teach me new things about
themselves, the world, and myself.”
For more information, call Fat Cat
Pie Co. at (203) 523-0389, email
tess@beeswithoutborders.org, or
visit
www.beeswithoutborders.org.
______________________________________________________________________
Coté, Founding Director
Bees Without Borders
is the brainchild of
Coté, former
high school dropout and vagabond
turned Fulbright Scholar and
professor. He was born into a
beekeeping family in Connecticut
and is (at least) the 4th
generation to carry on this
ancient art. When he's not busy
with hives,
Coté teaches
English as a Second Language at
Housatonic Community College and
runs
Silvermine Apiary,
home of Andrew's Taste-Bud
Bursting Local Wildflower Honey.
Through the U.S. State
Department’s USAID,
Coté volunteered
to go to Iraq for the summer of
2005 to assist Iraqi
beekeepers. In 2007 he spent
the summer in the Niger Delta
teaching beekeeping. He spent
January of 2008 in Kerala and
Tamil Nadu in southern India,
bring beekeeping skills to a
small village cooperative.
Join the hive...
Here are some ways you
can be a part of BwB:
1.
Sign up for
our newsletter. We'll keep
you updated on the progress of Bees
Without Borders, but we won't share
your email with anyone else. Send us
your email at
info@beeswithoutborders.org.
2.
Host a honey
tasting. We'll send you
instructions for how to hold a
sweet, sweet fundraiser for BwB (and
if we're in town, we'll come crash
your party too). Great to raise
money and awareness.
3.
Volunteer.
Let us know what sorts of
skills you have. We'll list
volunteer opportunities on this
website, so check back regularly.
4.
Give dollars.
Bees don't grow on trees.
(Donations can be made through our
website:
beeswithoutborders.org)
5.
Eat local
honey. Why? Because there
is nothing better!
Bees Without Borders
teaches beekeeping skills to
groups of people in economically
depressed areas of the globe as
a means of poverty alleviation.
This involves developing
culturally appropriate training
programs and materials for local
beekeepers to increase honey
yield and providing them with
the opportunity to learn about
and create new markets for their
products. BwB chooses sites
based on a set of criteria that
include motivation and community
support, need and potential
markets for honey-based
products. Our teams are made up
of both skilled and general
volunteers. All travel is paid
for by volunteers, who sleep and
eat in the homes of the
beneficiaries. Bees Without
Borders is currently planning
our first teaching trip to
Uganda.
BwB Goals
-
Respond to every single request
for assistance that we receive,
at the very least with useful
information
-
Maintain a global network of
beekeepers and linguists to
assist us in helping beekeepers
make their craft more profitable
-
Help beekeepers understand and
create new products and markets
from their unused or underused
resources.
-
Use every dollar wisely. All
funds are used pragmatically and
for the betterment of beekeepers