2019 Seeds Fund Recipient
Education in coffee communities is scarce all over Nicaragua. There are not enough rural schools provided by the government, meaning children have to walk long distances everyday to make it to the nearest school. This makes them susceptible to all kinds of threats during their daily commute. Children usually walk to school alone as their parents leave to work in the field very early in the morning. Furthermore, the poor quality of education in rural schools fails to motivate children causing most of them drop out of school at an early age to join their parents in the field.
Finca Aurora has built a small multi-grade school in order to minimize these issues and provide a well-rounded education. This Seeds grant pays a teachers’ salary and school supplies for their on-farm school. The school is for the children of the workers who live permanently on the farm as well as children of seasonal workers.
Seeds Program
Counter Culture Coffee collects $0.01 from every pound of coffee sold to fund our Seeds program. Annually, $1 per pound of our winter coffee blend, Iridescent, goes to further increase our contribution. Seeds offers financial grants to producers and producer organizations we work with to implement sustainability projects they identify as beneficial. To date, we’ve allocated over $280,000 to Seeds projects.