Starbucks brews up charity for Taiwan's aboriginal kids

By LARRY JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- To help the neediest of this nation's 22 million people, Starbucks is holding a three-month charity drive at its coffee shops throughout Taiwan to benefit aboriginal children. The money raised through customer donations and by selling mugs and penholders with the picture of an aboriginal doll on them will help pay for the children's education and provide them with school supplies.

The campaign, which began in June and will run through August, hopes to raise $150,000 to support 1,500 needy children living in the mountainous regions of Nantou County in central Taiwan.

This is the seventh straight year that the Seattle-based coffee-retailing giant, in conjunction with World Vision Taiwan, has raised money for aboriginal children. Federal Way-based World Vision has worked with Starbucks since 1999, using its contacts in the villages to get the money raised in the campaigns directly to those in need.

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COFFEE RATIONING

MONDAY, JULY 25: COFFEE RATIONING

Profile America for Monday, July 25. Imagine if you stopped by your favorite coffee shop on the way to work for your usual cup in the morning and found that coffee was rationed? For awhile during World War II, that was the case, as consumer hoarding caused coffee to be rationed. This week in 1943, President Roosevelt ended the program because imports had rebounded from their drop when the war began. Coffee is widely thought to have been introduced into America by Captain John Smith, one of the founders of the Jamestown Colony in Virginia. Consumption of coffee jumped after both the Boston Tea Party and the beginning of Prohibition. Now, the average American drinks nearly 24 gallons of coffee each year in all its forms -- regular and decaffeinated, as well as espresso and latte. Find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau on the Web at http://www.census.gov.