In February I had the rare fortune to be sent on a trip to Guatemala, the purpose of which was to meet and visit with the suppliers of our company's livelihood. The trip was arranged by one of our green coffee importers, Café Imports; our hosts and tour guides in Guatemala were the associates of Unicafe Ltd., a Guatemalan based coffee processor and exporter. My overriding goal on this brief foray into one of the world's premier coffee-growing countries was to see firsthand the ability, or inability, of a north American coffee roaster to make a positive social and economic impact in central America. I was pleasantly rewarded when I saw a very tangible and successful social project that was initiated and partially funded by a small, American coffee company.

After a long bus ride, my group and I disembarked at a small farm run by the Gonzalez family in a region called Nueve Oriente. Here we climbed into the backs of three different pickups and headed off on a dusty, bumpy, 30 minute drive to the little school outside Mataquescuintla. This school currently provides education, health care, and two meals a day to about 125 students from the surrounding area. The students are primarily the children of coffee farmers and harvesters, but the school is open to any local child who is willing to attend. Before entering the new school, we first took a look at the old school that had previously serviced the community it was little more than an open-sided shed with a tin roof and a crumbling outhouse. Then we crossed the road and toured the new school, a building featuring an indoor kitchen, a clinic, two or three spacious classrooms, and an outdoor patio with picnic tables for breakfast and lunch. Some of the students had practiced a skit and came out serenading us with songs and tossing confetti into the air. We clapped and our group presented them with a couple piñatas. I took a few pictures of a group of boys who were eager to pose and showed them the results on my digital camera. They were pretty excited to see themselves in a photograph, and their enthusiasm led a few of the girls over to pose with them. We stayed at the school for a while, watching the children eat lunch (chicken, rice, fresh tortillas) and enjoying a few more songs. Just behind the school, over a fence, an assortment of coffee, lemon, and shade trees grew within an arm's reach of the playground.

Before leaving the children and their school, I spoke with Ricardo, the director of Unicafe. I was curious about how the school had gotten started, and what role Unicafe had played in its funding and development. Ricardo said that the school was started when a north American client of his, a coffee roaster in California, requested that Unicafe give something back to the growers who supplied their coffee. After surveying the area, Unicafe decided that a new school near Mataquescuintla would be very useful to the coffee growers and to their children. Now in its sixth year of operation, the school is preparing for its first graduating class. Once the students graduate from the school at Mataquescuintla, they will be offered a fully paid scholarship to a high school in Guatemala City, a chance few local children get without outside help. The mission of the school is to enhance the lives of the area children through education, nutrition, and basic health care services. The school's long term goal is to encourage the students to use their education to provide positive social and economic change for their families, for their community, and for Guatemala. So far, this small school and its 125 students are doing a wonderful job.