Professional Costume Designers in Movies, TV and on Stage and Founders of Black Coffee Co-Op
This mother and daughter duo lit up the classroom with their in depth questions, thirst for knowledge, and their talented artistry. Mom did a design on the Florida fibershed for her project, and then they both did a design on a beautiful community center in Miami for their class project.
"The Black Coffee CoOp" was birthed Fall 2018 as the brain child of the mother-daughter team of Constance E. Lee and Constance M. Lee. They sell imported organic coffee, blended specialty teas and vegan bake goods. Many of the tea blends have medicinal properties. The Black Coffee Co-op provide services to special events and local Central Florida food markets. Constance Michelle, (daughter) is the tea mix-master and handles marketing, community relations, inventory & event planning. Constance Elaine (Mother) oversees the finances, event barrister, and event set-up hardware and supplies.
Although a start-up business, the immediate plan is to become a "cooperative business". A cooperative is a business that is; owned by its members; democratically controlled by members; and operated for the benefit of members. This parallels the permaculture design ethics of people care and community. Cooperatives are guided by values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity. The overall goal is to meet the shared needs of a group of people, in other words caring for others.
The Black Coffee Co-op believe in fair trade efforts, sustainable and regenerative environmental practices. All of the coffee and teas or organically grown and carefully chosen based on these principles. Also, they firmly believe in supporting the local economy in the community, by participating in neighborhood fund raisers and community events. Thus far, Black Coffee is steadily growing and upon customer request, has expanded the product line to include; tea pots, tea balls, and tea spoon accessories.
Besides marketing organic coffee and tea, this dynamic duo is a creative force in the performing arts. Both mother and daughter are professional costume designers. They have worked on major films, network television series, commercials, theater and corporate productions. Recently, their repertoire have included Oprahs, OWN Network, Disney World, The Orlando Ballet and the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. Constance, the daughter particularly enjoy making plaster character masks and is skillful in dramatic facial make-up.
They both enjoy weaving, spinning, quilting and other fiber art projects. Presently, they have two art installations at Three-Mask Art Gallery in Orlando, and have a few award winning art shows to their credit.
And it goes without saying, their PDC in permaculture design principles was a natural fit for this vegetarian mother and vegan daughter. Constance Michelle is an herbalist studying the medicinal properties of plants and have completed her certificate in herbal medicines.
Bob went on to found a national organization, Kenaf Partners.
Bob’s focus is on growing kenaf, a plant similar to hemp in versatility, use and value, but without the legal restrictions. In some ways it is not as well known as hemp, so his challenge is to educate people on the benefits as well as get this super useful plant into broader use. One challenge has been having a source for kenaf seed grown throughout the USA in sufficient quantities to meet the demands. He thus founded Kenaf partners, and has launched 7 pilot projects on 10 sites in 2019, based on 31 varieties of seed growing operations.
Viable germination and seed yield will be calculated and lab tested. Those varieties that pass the test will be added to their catalog released later this year. With this catalog an individual can determine which varieties they can grow for seed in their latitude and what markets they would be suited for. The next few years seed from kenaf seed operations will be supplied to new seed growing operations only, until the seed supply is sufficient to offer to corn, soy, cotton farmers as a rotational cash crop. This is the low hanging fruit these farmers have been looking for. Lower input costs, higher yields, local markets with prices they are in control of. This will start the process of reducing herbicides, pesticides, fertilizer erosion and other forms of pollution that end up in our waterways etc. Photos from growers can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/162434824326955/?epa=SEARCH_BOX
Kenaf has many uses and Bob is working on getting a number of them into broader use. One of these is soil building, which shows promising results: https://www.kenafpartnersusa.com/KenafAndSoil.html
The logging of trees continues to increase around the globe. “Our approach to replace the need for logging by introducing a transition option for this industry as seen here:” https://www.kenafpartnersusa.com/CO2.html
Kenaf farmers who desire to do so will be able to transition to woody perennial polycrops, food forests, silvopasture, alley cropping, agro forestry etc, thus making their systems even more resilient, profitable, and regenerative.
On housing you may have heard of hempcrete, used to build homes. Kenaf can be used in the same way. https://www.kenafpartnersusa.com/Eco-Friendly Housing.html Kenaf Partners will offer workstores in 2020 and are in the planning stage. Bob has partnered with Derek Cross who has many years experience with both kenaf and hemp. He hosts the podcast Hemp Chat - hear Bob on the show. https://www.spreaker.com/user/thehempchat/bob-lawrason-podcast-8-12-19-5-38-pm
Kenaf may someday help replace fossil fuels. With bio-diesel made from kenaf seed and the use of kenaf-made solar electric and super capacitors, regions can increase the resiliency of local economies and find a balance of exchange to meet the needs for their community.
“We released two books this year and are currently releasing a French Edition requested by the farmers and one of our partners in Togo Africa. I have partnered with Richard and Mary Rensberry, authors and illustrators of books for children ( also for adults and businesses), teaching values that can affect culture, ethics, social and others that embrace the ethics of permaculture.”
You can download the first Kenaf Book for free here: https://www.kenafpartnersusa.com/books.html
To see the children’s book, titled “Seeds for Life, Kenaf” see https://www.booksmakebooms.com/free-pdf-books.html “
Bob’s strategy and plans are based on permaculture design and principles. These can be applied to any scale you want to address, handle many of the worlds problems especially when you stack functions and apply all the tools, principles and ethics to your designs.
“I want to let others know that having attended your Permaculture Design Course (PDC) more than once has made a difference each time to understand Permaculture, the design process and to think and act from a whole new perspective. I would attend another one of your PDCs if possible and know that I would learn more and better understand. I can't imagine what my life would have been like had I attended one of your PDCs earlier in my life. I believe that the world would be in better shape had I and others learned some years ago. I am partial to PDCs attended in person with other students and not online. I have also watched the stats of your student graduates compared to other instructors and have noticed your graduates are very active in applying what they learned. I would recommend your PDC above any others.”
Thank you Bob, for the groundbreaking work you are doing with kenaf! We’re excited to see how things unfold for you!
is a mother, life-long gardener, and former teacher. She grew up on a working farm where her family raised livestock and tended large gardens and orchards. Her family has been farmers as far as we can look back, so you could say that growing food is in her genes. Helping preserve natural spaces has always been a priority for Amanda, so discovering permaculture helped blend her two passions together. Grow Permaculture helped her learn to design from a whole systems perspective, with longevity of the entire system as a priority from day one.
Amanda founded Living Roots Eco Design, an ecological landscape education and consulting business. She helps people learn how to take better care of themselves and the earth. Living Roots Eco Design focuses on teaching people skills to take care of their own landscapes in an earth-friendly way. Whether someone wants to grow vegetables, a food forest, native Florida plants, or just take care of their current landscaping without chemicals, Living Roots Eco Design can guide them. We like to say that we help people take their "dream landscape" and help it meet what's practical for each individual's space and budget. She has helped several families convert their lawns to native and edible landscapes. Many of those homes are in HOA communities.
Pinellas Community Compost is an initiative of Living Roots Eco Design. It actually started as a Facebook support group started by Amanda during her PDC with Grow Permaculture. Two other graduates, Jen Andreani and Heather Henderson got involved in the beginning. PCC grew bigger... We were invited to teach classes and even to organize food system initiatives with non-profit groups. Now, we offer virtual and in-person classes, and help with community sustainability initiatives for all sorts of compost and soil health related issues.
https://livingrootsecodesign.com
