Consisting of a single paved road, the community of Monserrate straddles a ridge in the beautiful Cordillera Central mountain range of Colombia, South America. Most residents of Monserrate and surrounding communities are small-scale farmers who grow coffee as a cash crop. Several years ago, some of them formed an organization in an effort to sell their coffee at a better, fair price. In 2005, Craig Holt, founder and managing partner of Atlas Coffee Imports in Washington State, traveled to Monserrate to work with the growers to assess the quality of their coffees, review their harvesting & processing techniques, and offer suggestions on how to improve their position in the specialty coffee market.

Holt admired the community’s commitment to the improvement of their own lives through the desire to produce the best coffee possible, and thus formed a relationship with the growers, resulting in an exclusive agreement to buy the Monserrate coffee at an agreed premium price. The success of the relationship has allowed the growers to take on new members to their organization, increase its production, and build a coffee cupping laboratory.

When 3rd graders at Hemingway Elementary school embarked on finding a community service project, they jumped at the chance to help a community of kids a continent away. The kids of Monserrate love their soccer, but play in multi colored t-shirts because the choice to have real soccer jerseys just isn’t a reality. The idea of raising money to give the gift of soccer jerseys to the children of this community was met with total enthusiasm by the students.

To embark on the special global community project, each of the 3rd grade classes took a field trip to Lizzy’s Fresh Coffee in Ketchum, Idaho to learn about coffee history, cultivation, the science of coffee roasting, and the social aspects of the beverage. The kids learned that, as the second most highly traded commodity behind oil, coffee has a massive impact on the global economy and communities around the world.

After the kids’ very hands-on field trips, each of the children in the 3rd grade classes designed and created a coffee label, and voted on their favorites. The winning labels from each class are featured on two of the Lizzy’s Fresh Coffee blends that include the coffee from Monserrate, and can be purchased online to help raise the money needed. All of the proceeds from the sale of the coffees go toward the purchase of the soccer jerseys.

Lizzy's Fresh Coffee is proud to support the kids in this wonderful project, and to support the efforts of Atlas Coffee Imports in creating a meaningful and sustainable business relationship within the global coffee community.

The kids succeeded in raising enough money to buy 30 soccer jerseys, which were delivered in person by Liz Roquet in August of this year! Needless to say, there were big smiles all around.