The Mayan Indian growers of Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, are proud of their heritage, and for producing Guatemala’s finest certified organic specialty coffee. They are also proud that now, through their hard work, they will also be able to repair their children’s school and its’ latrines, and eventually be able to open a library in the school to supply textbooks for their children.

It is estimated that 90% of the rural population of Guatemala is illiterate. This is the highest illiteracy rate among women in the western hemisphere. ChildAid, a nonprofit organization that has been working in the Mayan communities of Guatemala since 1993, has met with the Santiago coffee growers and have estimated the costs for materials to repair the school and latrines at $3,000.00. The growers have committed to doing the repairs themselves. The repairs will be the first step, so the children can safely use the school. Then we can next begin the library with a cost of approximately another $3,000.00.

The Mayan natives of this community struggle to survive on a day-to-day basis; looking towards building a future is a concept that is unfamiliar to them. OPTCO has been working on this community for 10 years, and we realize that the key to improving lives and making changes toward that end must begin with education. With illiteracy at these unbelievable levels, it is urgent that more than just paying premiums to growers is necessary, if not life saving. These growers and their families need our support. They work in the hardest of conditions, hiking 2 miles up and down the mountain with 100 LB bags of coffee cherries on their backs to sell during harvest season, to bring us this wonderful coffee. They deserve our help.

The Santiago Coffees have, for the past 10 years, been helping the growers through a .10 per pound premium that is paid back directly to them to help provide pre-financing for their crops for the next year, as well as, bridging the financial cap between harvests. OPTCO has always believed that the profits need to be shared equally for the long term sustainability for any coffee project and to make sure that the growers keep producing the fine coffees we and our customers demand. But premiums for our farmers is still not enough to help them build a better future for them and their families. It must begin with education. So OPTCO is contributing a penny for every pound of Santiago Coffee you buy this year to ChildAid to help our growers accomplish their goal of repairing the school and providing a library of school books for the school and its’ children.

We hope you will share this story with your customers, so they will know what their purchase of Santiago, Atitlan, Guatemalan is doing to help this community. They will appreciate this coffee so much more knowing how they are helping to improve the lives of these children and future generations of children in this coffee growing village.

This past year has been a great year for OPTCO's Beans for Books program. Because of the support of Roasters all across the US and Canada for the Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala coffee, we have been able to supply the growers with enough materials to do a lot of needed repair for the Tzanchaj School that our growers' children attend. The latrines have been repaired, the broken windows throughout the school have been replaced, and bars put over them to prevent future breakage. Even a new basketball court has been added for the children to play in. In addition to these repairs, three new classrooms were added, so now additional 100 children can attend school.

It is so encouraging to know that we are making progress in this poor community, but there is still so much left to do. Because of work being done at this school, textbooks were donated for the library, but due to the fact that there is no place to put them, the books are being stored in the grower's homes.They have made a request to OPTCO for funds to buy the materials to build a library. The library would not just service the school, but would be for the use of the whole community. Since education is the key to the long-term improvement of life in these Mayan communities, this is an important step. We need all the help we can get to make this wish a reality. Child Aid is making donation cans available for retail locations. If you are interested, contact Child Aid directly, or OPTCO. We hope you can find a way through your sales of the Santiago Atitlan Coffee - or any coffee for that matter to help support the wish of these struggling coffee farmers, who want to create a better life for their children.