Coffee Kids, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was founded in 1988 by Bill Fishbein, a specialty coffee roaster and retailer, who was inspired to help alleviate the poverty of coffee growers in Guatemala and other areas of Latin America. Coffee Kids offers programs such as micro-enterprise, health care, education and community based projects.

Local coffee-farming families and community members identify challenges, and then CK and other local non-profit organizations work together to provide solutions to the coffee farmers, while respecting the cultural integrity, intelligence and ingenuity of the people served. All programs are intended to be self-sustaining and involve more than just fair trade or organic premium pricing of coffee.

CK currently works in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Peru.

Several thousand families in over 100 communities benefit from Coffee Kids programs. As funding grows, it is hoped that programs can be expanded to other countries.

To the extent possible, CK assists in humanitarian emergency and disaster relief. In 2005, CK raised funds for coffee growing communities in Guatemala and Mexico affected by Hurricane Stan. Following the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, CK raised funds for families in Sumatra’s coffee growing region of Aceh. In 1998, CK was able to help Nicaraguans affected by Hurricane Mitch.

Why the coffee crisis? In the early 1990’s, earnings associated with coffee harvesting were around $10-12 billion (with world retail sales of about $30-billion). As of 2004, retail coffee sales had grown to about $80-billion (USD), but earnings by coffee producing countries had dropped roughly 50% (since early 1990’s), to about $5.5-billion. As newer coffee production in Brazil, Vietnam and other countries has been greatly increased in recent years, the supply has outpaced the demand, and driven the coffee costs down to most coffee growers.

25 million families around the world work in coffee fields and are completely dependent upon coffee for their income. CK also helps coffee farming families to develop income sources not related to coffee, in an effort to diversify, and provide supplemental income.

Diversification is often encouraged to limit the effect of lean coffee production years, as most families are 100% dependent on income from  coffee production.

Micro-loans and other support services help families start or expand small businesses, such as selling tortillas, chicken raising, organic honey production, worm-composting, fruit and vegetable canning, eco-tourism, mushroom production, textile production, or opening a general store or bakery.

Another program is developing biodiesel fuel from local agricultural products in Guatemala to provide local employment and a source of fuel through a sustainable business.

Information on donations and locations of coffee retailers supporting CK is available on their website.