Longbottom Coffee & Tea
The Coffee Trust
Coffee Trust works with coffee farmers to help them overcome deep poverty. Supporting health, food sovereignty, education and alternative income projects, The Coffee Trust helps coffee growing families carve out their own future. It is a methodology called farmer-to-farmer or campesino-a-campesino.
For over 25 years, Bill Fishbein has been a leading figure in establishing development projects that directly help coffee farming communities in Central and South America. He founded Coffee Kids in 1988, “the first non-profit in the world to work exclusively with coffee producers for the benefit of small-scale coffee farming families.” In 2008, he handed the reigns of Coffee Kids to a new generation of leaders and started The Coffee Trust.
The Coffee Trust continues Bill’s vision, working with small-scale farmers at a grass roots level to establish innovative and effective approaches to development in Guatemala and Honduras. The Coffee Trust approaches sustainability at origin by focusing its efforts, energy and funding toward a comprehensive, integrated development program with a strong focus on capacity building in each region where they work.
In the Spring of 2014, Michael and Leo had the privilege of visiting Guatemala and Honduras with Bill, Paula and Pepe of The Coffee Trust. They were able to see first-hand the campesino-a-campesino methodology at work. Farmers and families organizing themselves and directing their futures based on their priorities, their values and their cultures. The impact and results are amazing and give us great hope for the work Bill, Paula, Pepe and the whole Coffee Trust team are accomplishing in these communities for this generation and the ones to follow.
Thank you Bill and you team for decades-long dedication and sacrifice. The future is bright. Visit longbottomcoffee.tumblr.com to see photos and notes of our trip.
Learn more at www.thecoffeetrust.org