One Home Collective is a non-profit just like Compassionate Atlanta. What they do is help the growers in Mexico. The event that I went to was a fundraiser for the coffee documentary. And that’s where I got to interview Arturo.
It took him 5 years to make the movie. He loves Mexico and the families that grow the coffee there. These families are spread out over 640 communities across Mexico. Each community consists of anywhere from 20-50 families.
The film talks about the struggle that coffee growers faced in wanting to set their own prices for coffee. But the people in New York were setting the prices. And the growers didn’t necessarily like that because they wanted to take back control from New York. The producers of the coffee didn’t know where their coffee was being sent.
The people making the coffee were getting 25 cents for what was then being sold in the U.S. for $15. And I don’t know how you feel, but I would feel like that’s a disservice. I would like to see that $15 go back to Mexico and the families of the growers.
Arturo lives in Mexico. He loves it. Some of the coffee growers get up between 4 and 5 in the morning. They usually drink coffee and it usually takes them about an hour and a half to walk to work.
Most people in the U.S. get their coffee from American stores. But if you were to ask them, “where do you think your coffee came from”? They’d have no idea.
In the film, the growers spoke their native language.
Most of the families working the fields have 5-7 kids. Let’s figure out where that money is going. Let’s give it back to the growers and their families. So that they will have money to live on and keep growing more coffee. Let’s be more compassionate. The next time we pick up a cup of coffee, think about how that cup of coffee could help other kids.
They interviewed people in the film from Seattle to California. They interviewed people to get their take on the situation because they’re not on the front lines but they kind of are because they’re in the coffee universe all day every day. They taste test coffee.
The problem facing America today is that coffee is consumed all over but America is not really taking into account where all that coffee is coming from. It’s coming from the growers themselves. And it’s going to the consumers. I think it should be the other way around. It should be going to the growers and then to the consumers to see how they would deal with making a $6 cup of coffee. So they would see how much effort it takes for that cup of joe.
To learn more and support OneHome Collective click here.
Jimmy Freels
Intern-Compassionate Atlanta
