It started in Italy, not surprisingly, where people are by nature kind and generous, having lived together in close quarters through good times and bad. In the country's small towns and crowded neighborhoods, no one's a stranger; everybody's related, and you take care of your own. In 2010, a group of regional festivals revived the tradition of the caffè sospeso, a "suspended coffee" paid for but not yet consumed, and the following year municipal authorities in Naples proclaimed an official Giornata del Sospeso to coincide with Human Rights Day on December 10th.
In Seattle, a techie named Jonathan Kumar developed an app, FoodCircles to let those feeling flush help those who might be hungry. In Ireland two years ago, a plumber named John Sweeney wrote a Facebook post suggesting a revival of the Suspended Coffee concept, and the notion took off.
"The caffè sospeso has been identified as a symbol of grassroots social solidarity," its advocates say. A report on NPR claimed there are 500 coffee shops across the US that offer some sort of mechanism for a coffee-buyer to pay it forward.
Uncle Howard, who's not averse to wacky ideas about using SBUX to create a sense of community (remember "Race Together"?), hasn't weighed in yet, but it's just a matter of time.
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