09.20.07 : The beginning of an amazing adventure

Dear friends of Rubicon,

Rubicon's international reputation as a leader in social entrepreneurship, and the day to day work of Rubicon serving low income, disabled, homeless and other at risk communities in San Francisco' Bay Area have often seemed like two worlds in different galaxies.

Starting next week an amazing adventure, and a great opportunity, will provide a bridge between the two worlds of Rubicon.

Three representatives of Rubicon, Fred Earl, lead driver extraordinaire for Rubicon Bakery, Cassandra McElveen, a lynchpin in Rubicon's Workforce Services department, and Rick Aubry, Rubicon's peripatetic President will fly to Rimini, Italy to participate in the international "Squisito" festival. The festival celebrates how food projects around the world that create great products are using food as a tool to change the world for the better.

Though Rick is often asked to present Rubicon's work in many places (over the past two years alone in literally six continents), the folks who do the work every day in Richmond have never had the opportunity to directly tell the Rubicon story, to experience first hand people in other organizations around the world are solving the same problems of inequity, poverty, and access to independent lives they do at Rubicon, or to experience directly the high regard and respect with which Rubicon is held throughout the world.

Next week, in Rimini, Italy, Fred and Cassandra will join Rick in representing Rubicon. Thanks to the generous financial support from San Patrignano www.sanpatrignano.org an amazing fellow social enterprise in Italy, Rubicon folks will be on panels, staff a booth with Rubicon wares, present to the 1,000s of attendees of Squisito, the international press, etc. how we are changing the world for the better.

Starting next Wednesday, we will be blogging live from the site of Squisito in Rimini Italy. We hope that friends of Rubicon will tune in to the amazing experiences from our trip we will share.
For Cassandra this is her first international trip. For Fred this will be his first trip on an airplane anywhere. For Rick the ability to have colleagues share the love Rubicon receives at such events is a great opportunity to link his job as Rubicon missionary with the folks who actually make the Rubicon dream come alive every day.