By Ruth Ann Ruiz
The Post Newspaper Features Editor
The launching of Coffee Artisans Friendships Exchange (CAFÉ), which featured a coffee tasting session, brought out conversations, smiles and positive reactions from the people in attendance at the Sunflower Bakery in Galveston.
“I like it, I give them a 10 for this coffee,” said Chef Rafael Galindo, aka Mr. Red Onion. “You don’t even need cream for this coffee, it’s that good,” he added.
“Coffee is a big part of the culture in Honduras. We drink coffee in the morning like Americans, and we drink it in the afternoon. For dinner, we might just have a cup of coffee and some sweet bread,” Galindo explained.
“The coffee is outstanding. It’s bold with a unique flavor,” said Pete Seroka.
Special guests included the Counsel General of Honduras, Yolanda Oliva, who was celebrating her own birthday and drove from Houston to Galveston for some coffee tasting. Her husband, daughter, and brother came with her for the rolling out of CAFÉ.
It’s very good coffee,” said Ricardo Oliva, who had traveled from Honduras to Houston for his sister’s birthday.
The coffee is grown in the Opalaca Region of western Honduras, where the altitude is high and the temperature is cool, making for an ideal coffee growing environment. The farmers who grow coffee for CAFÉ are learning sustainable growing practices.
CAFÉ has been percolating as an idea since 2016. The Children’s Center, Inc. needed a way to teach their young people preliminary job skills and produce a product to be sold for fund raising.
“We were looking for an entrepreneurial project so our young people could develop job readiness skills, so we started researching options,” said James Keel, President of The Children’s Center, Inc.
The Children’s Center Inc., is a non-profit that has been serving children for 145 years.
TCCI provides housing, mentoring and other needed services to youth and families who are survivors of abandonment, abuse, neglect and exploitation. TCCI operates throughout counties in the Texas Gulf Coast region as well as in Mexico and Central America.
It was due to the tragic deaths of two young people who had been in America and returned to Honduras that the TCCI board was motivated to seek out a way to provide housing and safe jobs for homeless young adults in Honduras.
Producing coffee was something that would meet the needs of the young people in Honduras as well as the needs of the young people in the United States.
TCCI built a house for homeless young adults in Honduras and began a partnership with several coffee farmers. Young people who were once homeless both now have a home and can work safely at the farms growing coffee.
The first shipment of 2000 pounds of coffee arrived in Galveston last month. Then it was time for the team to go to work in Texas securing licensing to roast and grind coffee beans. Keel and one young adult were responsible for roasting and grinding the first batch of coffee.
In the future, more young people will be trained to roast, grind, package, and ship the coffee to fulfill customer orders.
“As they perform the tasks they will gain a greater understanding of things most of us take for granted such as personal hygiene, staying focused on a task, and following directions,” explained Keel.
Under the careful watch of loving parents who provide nourishing meals, tuck a child in at night and get the child off to school along with other simple loving tasks, children are usually able to grow into stable adults who find their way into adult society.
But there is a growing group of young people who did not have the option of growing up in a loving home. These young adults have ended up without the skills and options needed to start their journey into adulthood and are often homeless and become victims of crime.
Young people in foster care are booted out of the social services system once they turn 18. Without a family of their own to lean on, plus with all the situations that landed them in foster care, most of these young adults have gaps in their learning about how to manage in society and many of them become homeless.
Organizations such as The Children’s Center, Inc. work to fill in the gaps for the growing population of homeless young adults.
With grant funding becoming more challenging in the past several years and social needs growing since the onset of the pandemic, TCCI is looking to other sources for raising funds needed to continue serving homeless young people. They are eager to build their customer base for CAFÉ. The proceeds from coffee sales will provide supplemental income to sustain their services.
CAFÉ is available for customers to order on line at https://www.thechildrenscenterinc.org. “We offer a monthly coffee subscription or customers can purchase one bag at time,” said Keel.
