Tilted Shed Ciderworks, Ellen Cavalli
To date we have made strides on all three goals!
In June 2022 we released our now-annual Pride canned coferment called We Are All Stardust. We commissioned a local queer artist to do the label artwork, and for the release party, welcomed them to show and sell their art with a special exhibit at the cidery. We donated 10% of all sales from Stardust to TransLifeline, for a total of $650. And then in February, we hosted the Gallo LGBTQ+ group at our cidery for a special fundraising event and tasting, in which we got to choose the beneficiary. Once again we selected TransLifeline, and raised $2000!
During the 2021 harvest, we connected with Marreya Bailey of Mad Marvlus, and after learning about her goals and vision, we entered into a collaboration. We helped source fruit (including from EARTHseed Farm, an organic, permaculture-based Afro-Indigenous farm here in Sebastopol), provided the pressing equipment, cidermaking space, and barrel/bottling assistance. We jointly released the cider last fall. We have also assisted with other production-related aspects, and are donating to her Bathing Collective event, to help build capital and business resources for BIPOC makers in the wine/cider space.
Bottles are probably our biggest contributor to global warming, and as we know, climate change disproportionately impacts low-income people and communities of color, so addressing climate change is also part of social justice. In the past couple of weeks, we've made some baby steps! We are now working with a Sonoma County company called Conscious Containers, which is launching a bottle reuse program. We are buying about 100 cases of sparkling bottles from them for our upcoming bottlings, and they will be able to be collected and returned to Conscious Container, to be washed and sanitized for reuse. This project is still in its pilot stage, and I don't know exactly how much impact it will have, but the rep at CC wants to work with us to test label adhesives (for washing) and other processes.