In 2008 Coffee Kids will proudly celebrate 20 years of helping coffee-farming families improve their quality of life. Throughout this year we will regularly post updates on events celebrating two decades of work and bits of history from our past.
Coffee Kids was delighted to be able to present at the keynote address at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) Conference and Exhibition.
In honor of our 20th Anniversary, Coffee Kids would like to thank all of our members, partners and sponsors throughout the world who have helped make it possible. We recently completed this video with the help of Machine Hero, a Providence, R.I.-based firm. It features images from our partners in Latin America and interviews with a number of our long term supporters and friends. The video explores Coffee Kids effect in the global coffee community and how support for Coffee Kids translates to support for the long term future of the specialty coffee industry.
Please leave comments on the video below and thanks for making our first two decades rewarding and fruitful!
If you are attending the SCAA Conference in Minneapolis, be sure to visit us at our booth #1241 and learn how your contributions are making a difference and if you can’t make the conference, check out our Web site to learn more about our work.
In this entry, David Abedon, co-founder of Coffee Kids, chronicles the genesis of the organization when he helped Bill Fishbein plan his trip to Guatemala to visit coffee-farming families in the late ‘80s. Abedon is a professor in the Natural Resources Science Department in the College of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Rhode Island. He currently serves on Coffee Kids board of directors.
“In the 80s I applied for a sabbatical leave from URI and stayed at Brown University in the School for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.
“In order to get to Brown, I would walk from my house through Wickendon Street to the east side of Providence to Brown. I would stop at Bill’s store, the Coffee Exchange, for some muffins on my way to work and on my way back and that’s when we started to discuss coffee and poverty.
“So when Bill told me he was going down to Guatemala, I said, ‘What are you going to do when you get there? Who are you going to see?’ And Bill said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I just have to go.’
“So we looked at the schedule and started to set things up.
“I called up Partners for the Americas and Bill and I figured out a way for him to visit some of these coffee regions and so he came back and said, ‘We gotta’ do something.’
“I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘I don’t know, what?’
“Sometime along when we were starting to figure things out and we’d started to do some fundraisers, I invited Dean Cycon and he and Bill hit it off and Coffee Kids mushroomed from there.”
Dan Cox was one of the first members of Coffee Kids’ Advisory Board in the late ‘80s when he was working for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. He is now the founder and owner of Coffee Enterprises.
In this entry for our 20th Anniversary, he chronicles his first meeting with Bill Fishbein, founder of Coffee Kids.
“I read the smallest of small articles on Bill and I can’t remember what magazine it was in. This thing was probably 1×1.5 inches and it was really nothing more than this guy who was trying to help coffee farmers.
“I thought this is kind of interesting, a little retailer who wants to do something international and he’s making something happen on his own.
“So I called Bill up and I said, ‘Hey are you the real deal and he said, ‘Well, I’m trying.’ So I said, ‘I’m doing a lot of business in Boston would you wanna meet?’
“We met a the Harvard bookstore, literally two strangers joined by a common love of good coffee and we just sat down and I asked, ‘What are you trying to do?’
“And he basically said he wasn’t sure, but he had to do something, because the plight is so real that doing nothing would be a sin of omission.
“I thought that was interesting and even though I’d traveled to coffee-producing countries, they were mostly glamour trips with big groups of people where you’re only seeing the best of a producing country and you’re somewhat sheltered from seeing the daily travails of coffee producers.
“You go to really nice plantations. You stay in nice hotels. You drive around in nice air-conditioned buses and that’s the whole thing about those trips at the time. You’re going to the producing world in a first rate fashion.
“So bill had seen something that I hadn’t seen, he went out and he stayed on the farms and he went off the beaten track where there were open latrines where people were paid just enough to feed themselves for that day. It was that kind of stuff that just wrenched his heart.”
Thanks to all of our sponsors and those who signed up early, Coffee Kids’ 20th Anniversary Celebration Dinner is sold out. We look forward to celebrating two decades with everyone attending.
If you weren’t able to get tickets to the event, be sure to visit our booth (#1241) in the exhibition hall. We’ll be featuring a plethora of information on our efforts with coffee-growing families.
Our sponsor list for Coffee Kids 20th Anniversary Celebration Dinner keeps growing as we get closer to the May 3 event. The celebration will commemorate achievements over the past two decades and honor all of our partners and our members who have helped thousands of coffee-farming families around the world improve their quality of life.
Tickets for the celebration dinner are available at the price of $75 each and reservations are required. Coffee Kids still has various sponsorship opportunities available. Any sponsorship revenue in excess of costs will be directed toward Coffee Kids projects in Latin America. Please contact Heather Ferraro by e-mail at or call 505-820-1143 for more information on tickets or sponsorship opportunities.
Our platinum donor is Longbottom Coffee and Tea, a coffee roaster and retailer based in Hillsboro, Ore. Owner and CEO Michael Baccellieri and his company have been enthusiastic Coffee Kids supporters since 1992. Baccellieri even traveled with our staff to Oaxaca, Mexico, in April 2007 to learn about the efforts of Coffee Kids partner FomCafé.
Our 20th Anniversary Celebration scheduled for May 3, 2008, at the SCAA Conference and Exhibition in Minneapolis, Minn., just keeps getting better. We’re happy to announce that Luca Mundaca, a recording artist with Putumayo World Music, will be performing at the event.
Mundaca, a self-taught guitarist and vocalist, has appeared on the Putumayo compilations “Women of the World Acoustic” and “Brazilian Lounge.” She was born in Chile and moved with her family to a small town south of Sao Paulo, Brazil, when she was six. At age 15 she began teaching herself to play guitar and has dedicated her life to music. For more information on Mundaca, check out her profile on Putumayo’s site.
Along with Mundaca’s performance, Coffee Kids 20th Anniversary Dinner celebration will feature a short Coffee Kids movie and a variety of speakers including Founder Bill Fishbein, Executive Director Carolyn Fairman, Board President Rob Stephen and longtime contributors and representatives from our partner organizations in Latin America.
Dinner reservations for the event are required. Please contact Heather Ferraro at or 505-820-1443 for reservations and details.
Longtime Coffee Kids supporter Longbottom Coffee and Tea is the platinum sponsor for our 20th Anniversary Dinner to be held on May 3rd at the Minneapolis Convention Center during the SCAA Conference and Exhibition.
Longbottom Coffee and Tea is a coffee roaster and retailer based in Hillsboro, Ore. Owner and CEO Michael Baccellieri and his company have been enthusiastic Coffee Kids supporters since 1992. Baccellieri even traveled with our staff to Oaxaca, Mexico, in April 2007 to learn about the efforts of Coffee Kids partner FomCafé.
“We believe all coffee roasted needs to be traded fairly,” Baccellieri said. “Longbottom Coffee works to support coffee-farming communities through a great organization—Coffee Kids.”
The celebration dinner will commemorate Coffee Kids achievements over the past two decades. Guests at the dinner will have an opportunity to learn about how Coffee Kids’ pioneering microcredit programs, health care services and educational activities have helped thousands of women, men and children to develop their local economies and build more sustainable communities.
Tickets for the celebration dinner are available at the price of $75 each. Coffee Kids also has various sponsorship opportunities available. Any sponsorship revenue in excess of costs will be directed toward Coffee Kids projects in Latin America. Please contact or call 505-820-1143 for more information on tickets or sponsorship opportunities.
The year 2008 marks two decades of Coffee Kids helping coffee-farming families create vibrant communities. Celebrate with us at our anniversary dinner on May 3rd at the 2008 SCAA Conference in Minneapolis, Minn.
Throughout the evening we will reflect on the achievements and challenges of the last 20 years, look ahead to the future, and acknowledge those who have stood by us and our partners in the work. Speakers will include Coffee Kids Founder Bill Fishbein, Executive Director Carolyn Fairman, and Board President Rob Stephen, as well as other special guests. Plus, a Putumayo World Music recording artist will be making a very special performance.
20th Anniversary Celebration Dinner
Saturday, May 3, 2008
7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Minneapolis Convention Center, Ballroom B
Dinner to include wine, hors d’oevres, entrée and dessert.
Individual: $75
Company table for eight : $560
Reservations are required. Please contact Heather Ferraro at or (505) 820-1443 for reservations.
Revenue in excess of event costs will be directed toward Coffee Kids’ projects in Latin America.
Hello Friends,
I’ve been working on behalf of coffee-farming families since 1988. By taking the simple step to create Coffee Kids with a few friends, I set in motion a multitude of forces that I had no idea were waiting in the wings. That step led me on a path to my life’s work: giving back to coffee farmers and helping create sustainable communities.
I am excited about Coffee Kids’ 20th year of helping coffee-farming families improve the quality of their lives. To commemorate this milestone, we’ll be holding a celebration dinner on Saturday, May 3, 2008, at the Minneapolis Convention Center during the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Convention.
During the evening we will reflect on achievements and changes over the last 20 years, look ahead to future goals, and acknowledge the people – such as yourself – who have helped along the way.
I invite you to become a Sponsor of this very special event* and join us in celebrating 20 years of vision and hard work on behalf of coffee-farming families. Since some of the sponsorships are available on a first come, first served basis, please download our sponsorship form (PDF; 436 KB) and send it to Ms. Heather Ferraro at Coffee Kids as soon as possible. Thank you.
Please don’t delay in helping us make this our most ambitious year yet in offering hope of a better future to thousands of coffee-farming families.
Best wishes,
Bill Fishbein, Founder
*Any sponsorship revenue in excess of event costs will be directed toward Coffee Kids’ projects in Latin America.
In 1988, Bill Fishbein, David Abedon and Dean Cycon began a chain of events that would lead to the creation of Coffee Kids, the first international nonprofit dedicated to helping coffee-farming families improve their quality of life. This year, we celebrates two decades of helping coffee-farming families create vibrant communities. Throughout the year, we will feature images and people from the past along with events celebrating our anniversary.
Bill Fishbein’s first visit to Guatemala in 1988 set the stage for what would become Coffee Kids after he witnessed the poverty surrounding coffee production and met with people like Miglioneth (left).
Coffee Kids Co-Founders David Abedon, Dean Cycon and Bill Fishbein mug for the camera with children during a visit to Guatemala.
Manuel Rodriguez (left) helped Fishbein and Coffee Kids develop the very successful micro-lending and savings model used by Coffee Kids partner AUGE (Self-Managed Development) in Veracruz, Mexico.
“In the 80s I applied for a sabbatical leave from URI and stayed at Brown University in the School for Portuguese and Brazilian Studies.
“I thought this is kind of interesting, a little retailer who wants to do something international and he’s making something happen on his own. 
If you weren’t able to get tickets to the event, be sure to visit our booth (#1241) in the exhibition hall. We’ll be featuring a plethora of information on our efforts with coffee-growing families. 
Our platinum donor is 
Mundaca, a self-taught guitarist and vocalist, has appeared on the Putumayo compilations “Women of the World Acoustic” and “Brazilian Lounge.” She was born in Chile and moved with her family to a small town south of Sao Paulo, Brazil, when she was six. At age 15 she began teaching herself to play guitar and has dedicated her life to music. For more information on Mundaca, 
