Tuesday Tip: 5 Gift Ideas for Progressive Dads and Grads

Good gifts for great people: celebrating dads and grads!

June is the month for celebrating fathers and graduates: The grads for what they’ve just done, and the dads for what they do every day.

If you’re shopping for a gift, we offer these suggestions, gathered from CREDO staff members who are giving gifts to dads and grads this month.

(Standard disclaimer: Products listed are not endorsed by CREDO Mobile. Before purchasing any product, please confirm that it meets your personal standards for corporate ethics.)

Birds & Beans Coffee

If there’s a coffee lover (or bird fan) on your list, look into Birds & Beans Coffee. This is the only company in the United States or Canada that sells exclusively shade-grown coffee certified bird friendly by the Smithsonian.

Migratory songbirds are in rapid decline and a primary cause is habitat loss as forests throughout Latin America are cleared. Often the reason they’re cut down is to plant full-sun coffee farms, which provide higher yields and larger corporate profits but are disastrous for birds.

Birds & Beans buys from over 2,250 family farms that grow beans planted in the shade, under a canopy of trees that provides habitat for birds. It pays top dollar so that farmers will keep growing coffee this way and so they can provide a decent living for their workers and families.

Birds & Beans coffees are certified organic and cost around $13 for a 12 ounce bag. Keep in mind that shade-grown coffee tends to be of higher quality and taste better than sun-grown coffee. Starting at $13.

Boozik Bamboo iPhone Amplifier

Your dad or grad no doubt has music on their phone. This eco-friendly fair trade amplifier is a great way to add volume while on the go. Just insert an iPhone into this 9-inch length of bamboo, and you can boost volume by 25 percent to 50 percent, without any batteries or electric cords. The results will vary depending on your surroundings.

It fits easily into a bag or pocket. It’s slow oven–dried and enameled with water-based lacquer for strength, durability and a smooth aesthetic. It fits all iPhones except the 6 Plus and can also accommodate a phone with a case or thicker frame. $32.

Vegan for Everybody

Your grad’s dorm days are a thing of history now, which means it’s time to start cooking! And if you’re going to learn to cook or just make regularly cooking meals a habit, why not try out vegan meals?

Check out Vegan for Everybody: Foolproof Plant-Based Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and In-Between, published last year by America’s Test Kitchen. The authors started from scratch to find vegan ingredients that produce dishes that are flavorful, satisfying and easy.

Like baja-style cauliflower tacos with crispy coconut-coated cauliflower, spicy mango slaw and cilantro cream. And butternut squash chili with quinoa and Peanuts. There are also delicious egg- and dairy-free baked dishes. And interesting discoveries like aquafaba, which is the liquid left over from cooked (or canned) chickpeas. It’s the ideal egg replacer. You can use it in pies, cookies and cakes, even beat it into peaks like egg whites.  $19.95

EST/WST rucksack

Here’s a cool gift for the dad or grad who’s a traveler – even if the trip is to the office or the coffee shop. Santa Cruz, California-based EST/WST has partnered with skilled artisans in Nepal and India to design these functional, attractive backpacks that “blend Eastern cultures with Western styles” (and hold a laptop).

They’re made from traditional textiles and durable natural fibers, including organic cotton, handwoven wild nettle, organic ikat handwoven in villages in India and dhaka from a workshop where the textile was created in a remote hill station in southern Nepal.

The rucksacks and other EST/WST products, including totes, caps and scarves, help sustain and keep relevant traditional artistic and cultural practices in communities now being inundated by Western commercialism. EST/WST pays a premium for high-quality materials, which enables its partner collectives to pay fair wages. Products are stitched in factories in the United States and at a fair-trade factory in India.
Starting at $110

iPad sixth generation from CREDO Mobile

Give your progressive dad or grad a CREDO Mobile membership, the only mobile carrier that shares their values. Values like support for women’s rights, social equality and climate justice – and adamant resistance to the Trump agenda.

Join today to give the new sixth-generation iPad, released earlier this year. The 9.7-inch iPad 6 is ideal for checking email, browsing the web or binge-watching Netflix. And don’t forget the iPad Apple Pencil for creating art on your iPad.

Best of all, when you give the gift of CREDO Mobile, you give the pride and satisfaction of membership in a nationwide movement fighting for a better world – and against the Trump agenda of hate, greed and deceit.

That’s a gift no one will ever forget. Now $299.99 ($99 savings) plus cost of plan.