C.O. brewery benefits local Black organization with ‘Black is Beautiful’ beer
BEND, Ore -- (KTVZ) -- A national beer campaign has comes to Central Oregon, as Boneyard Beer is taking part in brewing the "Black Is Beautiful" beer.
Black Is Beautiful is a national collaboration among brewers to bring awareness to injustices against people of color by brewing and selling the "Black Is Beautiful" beer recipe.
The company who created the recipe has asked breweries that participate to donate their proceeds to organizations that fight for equality and inclusion.
Chasen Bergstrom with Boneyard Beer said, "I know hundreds of breweries are doing this, and so it's pretty cool to see what kind of impact that can create in local communities across the nation."
In Central Oregon, Boneyard tapped the Central Oregon Black Leaders Assembly to benefit from the beer's proceeds, a move that has founder Riccardo Waites ecstatic.
"I felt blessed that there was a business out there that one, cared about people of color, Black people in particular, and cared about the community and the work that we're doing," Waites said Sunday.
Waites explained that the group has been busy over the past nine months, involved in a long list of community activities, like setting up a bottled water drive for the Warm Springs Indian Reservation after leaks in its aging infrastructure triggered several boil-water notices.
"All in all we, probably donated over 50,000 gallons of water this summer to Warm Springs, as well as things like masks, because that community was hit hard with COVID," Waites said.
As for what he plans to do with the beer proceeds, Waites said, "Funding our internship program, and also some of the funds will be used to create a scholarship that we will be giving out at the end of the year."
Waites said the proceeds also will help the group with other programs they are working on as well.
"We're going to be working hard on our DECO program -- that's our Diversity and Equity Central Oregon program. So out there, we're looking to black professionals to move and relocate to Central Oregon and help us build a black economy," he said.
