Mexico coffee-growing community gets local help.
High in the mountains of the Chiapas state of southern Mexico, farmers grow the beans we use in our Organic Shade Grown Mexico coffee. The cooperatives in this area are made up of more than 150 families working small plots, often in their own backyards, many hours away from any city center.
One of these cooperatives, located in an extremely remote area, has been producing high-quality coffee for Starbucks for several years. Although the children of the village could attend primary school in the central co-op area, there was no secondary school within a reasonable distance. That meant most children either left their families for school in bigger towns or left their education altogether to stay with their families.
Because Mexico is one of the countries where we not only have retail stores but also an excellent source of coffee, our partners (employees) in Mexico have the unique opportunity to give back to the very places that grow our coffee – within their national borders.
In 2005, our partners in Mexico and our joint venture partner, Alsea S.A.B. C.V., began working to help bring a secondary school to this community so that local children could continue their education without leaving home.
The community provided the land and construction workers, using premiums earned from selling high-quality coffee grown under Starbucks™ Shared Planet™ principles. The well-respected Tecnológico de Monterrey university donated the online curriculum, and Starbucks gave $10,000 to help build the single-classroom school and the satellite hookups needed. Sedesol, a public institution for social development in Mexico, donated computers and equipment for the classroom.
When this first classroom opened in June 2006, it became so successful that the community asked for another. We shared this story with our customers in Mexico, and through a variety of donations and fundraising efforts from Starbucks partners and customers, a fully equipped second classroom and sports court were built for the children in July 2008.
In fiscal 2008, Starbucks Mexico launched a second in-store campaign to build the village’s next request: a student dormitory. Our Mexico partners held a fundraising event for customers, honoring Chiapas farmers by auctioning pieces of a lifelike coffee tree sculpted by an internationally renowned Mexican artist. Starbucks also donated $10,000 to this part of the project.
Altogether, more than $180,000 has been raised for the community since the beginning of the project. The Mexico team hopes to continue working with the Chiapas community for as long as the area can benefit from the collaboration.
