This year, the WBC will be held in conjunction with the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe Conference and Caffé Culture Show, Europe’s largest specialty coffee expo.Special Coffee Kids/WBC efforts and events include:- An online auction of coffee-related items that will begin in June. All funds raised will benefit Coffee Kids’ projects for coffee-farming families.
- A Coffee Kids Reception will be held Thursday, June 24 at 6pm. The event will feature a quiz show with celebrity baristas, an open bar and a presentation from Coffee Kids Executive Director Carolyn Fairman.
- A coffee map featuring 20-25 of London’s must-visit coffee destinations will be compiled and distributed. All participating shops will collect donations and raise awareness of Coffee Kids.
We are excited to announce the second annual benefit drawing for Coffee Kids with three great prizes from Coffee Kids supporters. The drawing will be held on Sunday, April 18 at 1 pm at the Coffee Kids' booth (#2157) at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Expo in Anaheim, CA.
Looking for the perfect greeting card this holiday season? Thanks to Urnex for underwriting the printing, we have Coffee Kids holiday cards available. The cover features a beautiful image of a coffee plant by photographer Dorie Hagler from her photo documentary, Behind Every Cup.A set of ten (10) Holiday Greeting Cards costs $15 plus shipping and handling. (Inside message: Wishing you a peaceful holiday season and prosperous New Year!) Contact us to place your order at 505-820-1443 or info@coffeekids.org.
This holiday season, Sweet Maria’s produced “The Unofficial 2010 Dogs of Coffee Calendar,” which was sold to benefit Coffee Kids and five other charities. The calendar has 15 full-color photographs of dogs from various coffee-producing regions. Co-owner Thompson Owen took the photographs during his travels around the world in search of coffee.“Maybe he misses our dogs, West Oakland mutts of the first degree, or maybe dogs tend to be a friendly presence. Whatever the reason, over time, Tom has amassed quite a collection of photographs of dogs at coffee origins,” said Maria Troy, co-owner of Sweet Maria’s.The unique calendar is available for purchase on 
The Center for Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education in Costa Rica (CATIE) estimates that at least 10% of organic coffee farmers have gone back to conventional production. The article goes on to state that the high prices that had been associated with organic coffee are diminishing and many farmers are being forced to sell their organic beans in the conventional market.In Chiapas, Mexico, farmers associated with our partner ICSUR experienced this firsthand when a buyer canceled two large contracts and farmers were forced to sell their coffee in local markets. Many families sustained a heavy loss (
According to the article, farmers using chemical fertilizers and pesticides harvest about 485 pounds of coffee out of one acre, versus 285 pounds per acre on an organic farm. If they cannot justify the cost, they are forced to return to conventional methods.The impact is heavy in many communities. Given a lack of education on proper usage, local water sources are frequently contaminated with chemicals, much of the land is rendered sterile from overuse, and families are frequently exposed to toxic chemicals.Families working with our partner ICSUR have incorporated edible mushroom production and chicken-raising efforts to diversify their income and lessen their dependence on income from coffee. With economic diversity, many of these families can continue their organic farming and weather the finicky markets.
On February 25, I traveled with Norma Alcántara and Dina Córdoba of Coffee Kids’ partner, Self-Managed Development (AUGE), to visit the Chajulense Association of Women United for Life (ACMUV), our partner in San Gaspar Chajul, Guatemala.AUGE has extensive experience in microlending and savings programs and Coffee Kids coordinated a meeting between the groups so they could learn and share information. After a six-hour ride from Antigua, we reached the beautiful hills of Chajul.ACMUV’s representative Juana Hu Mateo and the women of the board gave us a warm welcome. For three days, women from both organizations shared their achievements, needs, hopes and ideas in the field of microcredit. During the sessions, members of ACMUV were curious about the role of savings, which is a pillar of AUGE’s microcredit program used by more than 3,000 women in Veracruz, Mexico.The discipline, dreams and strength of the women in Chajul were inspiring to Norma and Dina.“We had worked with many women in Mexico, but the courage and determination of the indigenous women of Chajul is a real motivator for us,” Norma Alcántara said.
Personally, I was impressed by how the board of ACMUV had been able to organize the meeting and necessary materials with very limited resources. During my previous visit to Chajul in August 2008, ACMUV board members had limited experience with computers and the internet, but through organizing this event, they learned quickly and were able to use the technology on a regular basis, improving their management skills and self-confidence.In a region that just a few years ago suffered under the scourge of civil war, and now struggles with high illiteracy and mortality rates, ACMUV is helping women and their families overcome poverty. Today, ACMUV provides 85 women with access to credit in order to start their own small business and generate income for their families. The visit from Norma and Dina helped the women of ACMUV focus their efforts.
At the final session, ACMUV member Marta Margarita Velasco Chel expressed in the local Ixil dialect, “I think womens’ groups women that focus on saving and solidarity, like the ones explained by AUGE, can be very good for us. With the solidarity groups we explain what we are going to do with the funds, but we can be confident the group will help us.”Our visit ended with an activity where each woman had a balloon representing her dreams. Like a balloon, our hopes and dreams fly, but occasionally they fall. The important thing is to help each other up so that our dreams can fly again.
Our reception, sponsored by 
We’ll also be selling tickets for our drawing to win a Sonofresco Roaster donated by Elan Organic Coffee. Tickets for the drawing are available for a suggested donation of $25 (five entries for a donation of $100) and participants need not be present to win. Stop by our booth or our reception to sign up. The winner’s name will be drawn on Sunday, April 19 at 1 pm at the Coffee Kids booth (#1334).See you there!
A number of images from Dorie Hagler’s exhibition "Behind Every Cup," will be on display and a drawing will be held for a print."Behind Every Cup" is an amazing body of work documenting the life of coffee-farming families, the conditions in which they live, and the joy that they carry with them. Visit the Web site, "
The new training center teaches by example. It was built using an environmentally-friendly compacted earth technique. Similar to adobe, it involves building molds and compacting dirt to form a solid wall. A water catchment system below the building collects rainfall in two large cisterns. The thick walls keep the building cool in the summer and warm when the temperature drops. CAMPO also has a number of demonstration projects to teach visitors from throughout the state of Oaxaca about organic gardening, permaculture, composting, fish farming, grey water treatment and bee keeping.Over 800 people attended the celebration. Before dinner was served, I gave a few words about the importance of CAMPO’s work and presented them with a certificate from Coffee Kids on behalf of all of our supporters to honor their work improving the quality of life in the entire region.
After dinner I ran into Pedro Osorio. We’d met a year earlier when Coffee Kids staff visited the community of Santa Cruz Tepetotutla, a far-flung community clinging to a mountainside in the Sierra Mixteca. He told me about their efforts to develop a new cooperative for coffee farmers in the area and a number of their efforts to diversify local income. When we last visited the community, they were working on a small eco-hotel for tourists. Santa Cruz is in the middle of a globally-important nature preserve and many in the community have learned the importance of conserving their natural resources and how it can be marketed to attract tourists. Hope I can get back there for a visit some day.After dinner, Jose Carlos Leon Vargas and Jose Luis Zarate from our Oaxaca office and I interviewed Eduardo Torres Navarrete, one of the founders of CAMPO. We had a great conversation and it’s easy to understand why CAMPO has been so effective over the past 20 years thanks to his leadership. I’ll be posting excerpts from our interview with him soon.Thanks to all of our supporters who have make the projects we support possible. These efforts are making a great difference. If you'd like to see more pictures from the event, 