One Mango Tree in Cleveland

July 10-12, 2009 ingenuityfest in Cleveland

See One Mango Tree Director, Halle Butvin in the Revive Fair Trade Eco-Fashion Show, Friday, July 10 at 9 pm at the Tech Center (Halle Building). The show will feature fair trade apparel and accessories from all over the world - and you can shop these products at Revive's street booth all weekend long.

If you can't make it over the weekend, stop by Revive's store in Cleveland Heights for the One Mango Tree Trunk Sale on Tuesday, July 14, 3:00 - 5:00 pm. Halle will be at the shop selling lots of One Mango Tree goods with cool new designs (like laptop bags, Obama BBQ aprons and yummy scented eye pillows!) straight from Uganda - this stuff isn't even on the site yet. Hope to see you there!

Put this address into Google maps for directions:
Revive Store
2248 Lee Road (2 blocks south of Cedar Lee Theater)
Cleveland Heights, OH 44118
216-371-2778

Movin on up

It was over some caffeine at Good African Coffee that I hashed out the final details of the lease and signed off, passing the thick document back to Norbert, my new landlord. He was heading off to Gulu that afternoon with a truck full of tile to get working on finishing up the building in time for our move-in date - July 1.

I came across this compound last year while working on a consulting assignment - back then it was broken down and a different shade of Easter egg - bright blue - with lots of stains from the rainy season. I never forgot the place, and while working on another consultancy this year, I stopped by again. It's just outside town, and totally spacious, and Norbert was making great strides in the renovation. The modernist building was constructed during the 70s, and sits between ACDI/VOCA's food security program office and a bombed out building that housed a soldiers mess hall during Amin's regime.

It's about a 20 minute walk from downtown Gulu, but just far enough outside the hustle and bustle that there's a definitive peacefulness in the air - a noisy quiet that is so seldom found, combined with a golden hue from the setting sun and the whispering breeze through the leafy trees in the back. The place just has something about it...what a magical place to work. We have some big plans for the space, so stay tuned.

Greater Good is providing support on the rent, and coinciding with the move in, we're starting up training and production of an exlusive line of organic cotton knit apparel for Global Girlfriend.

Check out the photos! We move in early next week.

One Mango Tree in the blogosphere

Lucy and Halle eating mangoes in Gulu

Santa Clara University student Mariam Mostamandy writes about One Mango Tree's social business approach on her blog.

Julie of Makezen's Reflections features One Mango Tree in her writing about sustainable business.

One Mango Tree featured in Issue 26 of Revive eNews, a fair trade shop carrying our products in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

One Mango Tree Sales Event at Meyers Architects

One Mango Tree invite for event at Meyers Architects in Columbus, OH

Keri Ours and Molly Bryant, architects at Meyers Architects in Columbus, Ohio, put on an awesome One Mango Tree event yesterday. Instead of hosting a party with actual merchandise, they took advantage of all of the online info about One Mango Tree. They put together a slide show of images, presented on the mission using info from the Learn section of the website, printed out product photos and prices, and then set up ordering stations using computers in their office.

checking out product images and prices

To top it off, everyone brought mango-inspired snacks: mango lassies, mango salsa, cookies and cakes, and invited staff and friends to come in for a different kind of work event - to shop, learn and do good.

enjoying the mango-inspired snacks

"...it was a great reason to get together and celebrate what One Mango Tree is doing to help people in Uganda."

Everyone left the event with a mango - stamped with One Mango Tree's logo and information for ordering products:


What a great idea! Want to plan your own One Mango Tree event at work? Send an email to info@onemangotree.com for more information.

Celebrate Father's Day with One Mango Tree

It's happened! We have loads of manly One Mango Tree products in stock - neckties, travel bags (new!), laptop bags (new!), yoga bags, and the new Obama BBQ apron! Just in time for Father's Day. Order by 12 pm EST on Wednesday to receive your order in time for the big day.

Retailer Profile: Greater Good

GreaterGood is a network of websites that raise money for charitable causes, The Hunger Site being one of the most popular in the network. The Hunger Site was started ten years ago, to focus the power of the Internet on a specific humanitarian need; the eradication of world hunger. Since its inception, The Hunger Site has provided more than 657 million cups of food.

When you shop on GreaterGood stores, a portion of the profits goes back to charities supporting the cause - so you do good twice, especially when you're buying fair trade products like One Mango Tree. Our product line is now available through all of the GreaterGood online stores:

The Hunger Site
The Literacy Site
The Breast Cancer Site
Global Girlfriend
The Child Health Site
The Rain Forest Site
Ecology Fund
The Animal Rescue Site

Check out one of our products and profile here.

We are thrilled to be working with Greater Good. CEO Tim Kunin spent a few days in Gulu in February, visiting our workshop and brainstorming on how to expand the partnership. They are contributing to One Mango Tree so that we can expand, providing funding to support the move to our new compound.

GreaterGood CEO, Tim Kunin, with One Mango Tree Director, Halle Butvin,
with Lucy and her family in Gulu

Stacey Edgar, founder of Global Girlfriend, will be visiting our shop in August, so look for a line of organic cotton knit in spring 2010 -made exclusively for Global Girlfriend!

Intern: Josh Engel

picking mangoes outside the new one mango tree compound in gulu

Josh Engel. Not your ordinary intern.

Josh is heading off to business school in the fall at Kellogg. After resigning from his position at the City of Chicago working with refugee resettlement and training, he headed over to Southern Sudan to help assess community needs for some Sudanese refugees back home who want to rebuild. Our paths crossed in Kampala, when a mutual friend suggested we have coffee.

A few days later, we agreed that Josh would stick around Uganda for a few months, interning with One Mango Tree. His task? Intel. Or that's what Lucy thinks. "Josh, are you a spy?"

No, not really. But Josh is studying our production process. After getting to know the ins and outs of how One Mango Tree operates, he's taking the process step-by-step and looking for where we can improve quality, timeliness and costs. He's writing it all down, laying it all out, and making suggestions for how we can create better products faster and with little waste - all while adhering strictly to our fair trade framework. In many ways, the work he's doing is re-shaping the way One Mango Tree operates - and I couldn't be happier with the results.

In the meantime, he's getting to know the ladies - sharing market lunches, experimenting with more manly laptop bag designs, and meeting one-on-one over sodas at Jojo's. One of these days we'll have him actually climbing the trees to pick the mangoes.