Everyone can help alleviate poverty and despair in third-world nations. By supporting organizations that train and fairly employ people in third-world nations, everyone can shop with a purpose.

Everyone who works at Kilns Bookstore is an unpaid volunteer for the purpose. Every item sold at the bookstore will help financially ensure a better quality of life to people in third-world nations.

Check out our variety of books on culture, philosophy, social issues and theology. Pick up a book on the works of Picasso, existentialism, or the AIDS crisis, and sit down in the café to discuss your thoughts with someone new. Kilns Bookstore is a place where people can collaborate on how to better serve the purpose. Chat with your barista about social activism and hear about new ways to support the purpose in the area.

Here is a look at some of the companies that Kilns Bookstore supports:

1. Amani Ya Juu: The bookstore sells handmade purses, bags and jewelry from Amani Ya Juu. The company trains marginalized women in Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda in sewing and marketing to prepare the women to financially sustain themselves.
2. Kashmir Family Aid: The bookstore will sell a number of textile items from Kashmir Family Aid, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2005 by Sam Carpenter and directed by Bend resident Christopher Stollar. KFA's primary goal is to counter poverty and terrorism in the region by providing secular education to quake-affected children. As mentioned on Good Morning Central Oregon and other news sources, the organization works to alleviate the poverty and wreckage left by the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir through fundraising.
3. Cauzal Coffee: The bookstore offers espresso beverages at donation prices and 12-ounce bags of coffee from Cauzal Coffee. The company uses Farm Friendly Direct, a sustainable sourcing program that fairly supports bean farmers and roasts their coffee at an independent roaster in Portland. Cauzal Coffee sends 25 percent of the price for each purchased pound of coffee back to different humanitarian causes chosen by the buyer.
4. Ransom Wear: The bookstore sells scarves, hats and other clothing from Ransom Wear, a non-profit company that rescues women from sex-trafficking routes between India and Nepal. The company also provides counseling, health care and job training for the women. All products from Ransom Wear have been handmade by rescued women.
5. Rise Up International: Screen-printed T-shirts for sale at the bookstore from Rise Up International represent a number of organizations that work to alleviate poverty and starvation in third-world nations. Each T-shirt is designed to represent a different cause as well. The shirts represent causes to end violence and war, the sex trade, and other forms of oppression. 
6. Scrolls from China: Alongside the works of Bend artists, the bookstore will feature scrolls painted by Chinese orphans who have been trained by professional artists. Scrolls from China was created when Bend residents Robert and Stephanie Tadjiki traveled to China to adopt a daughter and discovered that many Chinese orphans are released from care without education, job skills, money or family at the age of 14. The scrolls support the education and care of a child who would be destitute otherwise.