Coffee

When I asked Ben and Gingerich of Coastal Coffee Company to suggest a project to support through “Coffee”, they were quick to say, “How about one of our producers?”
 
See, in case you didn’t know, these guys are more than coffee roasters. They are THEE Coffee Roasters, and they really pour themselves into their work (pun intended), building face-to-face relationships with the farmers whose craft fills their cup.
 
And when I asked Ben to pick just one, Ben named Chalo of Huila, Colombia; a fifth-generation farmer who stridently follows sustainable practices that care for his workers and buyers alike.
 
A word from Chalo:
 
"We are very grateful for your email and for your enormously generous gesture of donating a portion of the sale of your coffee painting to our community in Colombia!
 
"I can assure you the donation will go to a very good cause. We have a few projects that we are currently working on. One of them is helping to fix homes of the elderly living in our community. Some live without electricity or running water. Others have dirt floors and others still have broken roofs that let water through when it rains. These members of our community are poor, live in modest conditions and often do not have family to support and take care of them."
 
Colombia is a lush land, highly urbanized, admirably environmentally-conscious and continually advancing toward amending the human rights of its 7.4 million internally-displaced people. To support a coffee plantation rooted in respect, transparency, progress and community care is just in good taste (okay, I’m done with the puns).
 
 
Colombia, Yemen, Uganda and 48 other countries from the United Nation's displacement statistics list are growers of coffee.