InterAmerican Coffee increases donations to Coffee Kids program
From now until International Coffee Day on October 1, InterAmerican Coffee will donate 20¢ to the Coffee Kids program for every pound of Coffee Kids green coffee it sells, up to $20,000.
The donation is in addition to the 10¢ per-pound premium that InterAmerican already pays the young producers, for every pound of the coffees it purchases from them.
“Instead of celebrating just one day, we’d like to use the whole summer to raise awareness of Coffee Kids and encourage our Oct. 1 donation higher,” said Florian Benkhofer, CEO of InterAmerican Coffee. “We’d like to make Coffee Day a culmination and celebration of the efforts of everyone involved—from US roasters to the Coffee Kids team and of course to these young producers, who truly are the future of coffee.”
Coffee Kids is a program of the global nonprofit Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) that aims to awaken the entrepreneurial spirit of young men and women in coffee communities. It offers 18-month-long Rural Business Workshops (“business school for farmers,” as it sometimes describes it) that offer agronomy training, mentorship, access to financing and entrepreneurship skills that young farmers can use to make empowered decisions.
InterAmerican’s October 1 donation will mark its fourth year of support for Coffee Kids, which has offered Rural Business Workshops to more than 550 young farmers in Honduras, Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador and Tanzania. While InterAmerican currently offers Honduras Coffee Kids UNIOCAFE, it plans to expand its offerings as more coffees become available.
“We are so thankful for InterAmerican Coffee’s support of these young farmers,” said Joanna Furgiuele, director of Partnerships and Strategic Initiatives at HRNS. “Thanks to investments over the past year, we have been able to improve the quality of coffee from the group of youths who are part of UNIOCAFE and expand our program with 100 new youths in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Over the next year, our plan is to double the number of youths we reach in Huehuetenango.”
“When youth have the knowledge and skills to create their own local opportunities, and connect into a global community, they feel secure to build their futures right at home,” she added. “That’s good for coffee, and it’s critical for these communities.”
