Reflecting on the New Year as We Continue Creating Change in 2026
As we close 2025 and anticipate another year of creating change in Guatemala's coffee growing communities, we’d like to dedicate time towards reflecting on the new year – emphasizing some of the strengths we’ve had in terms of organizational growth and briefly discussing some of the major changes we’ve witnessed in the coffee industry. In this article, we will be discussing some of the year’s highlights and how we’ve turned challenges into opportunities.
Giving Back This Festive Season | How Your Donation Creates Positive Impact in the Coffee Journey
When you give back this festive season, your donation creates a positive impact and isn’t just a gesture of goodwill, but becomes the seed for new opportunity and growth. Every donation creates a ripple effect across coffee growing communities in Guatemala – empowering the next generation of coffee producers, ensuring sustainable livelihoods for communities, and building resilience required for the next year’s harvests. Your gift supports the future of coffee producing families in Guatemala and our team as we drive meaningful change in each stage of the coffee journey.
Women in Coffee in Huehuetenango | Promoting Equality in the Coffee Industry in Guatemala
While we still have a long way to go to truly achieve gender equality in the coffee industry, it’s certainly worth highlighting where we see advancement—from the women coffee growers who are challenging the status quo to the administrations who are taking bold steps to break biases within their organizational structures. These examples serve as immense inspiration for what De La Gente, our partner cooperatives, and the entire coffee industry can achieve to ensure there are more women in coffee—from cultivation to processing to serving to negotiating.
2022 highlights at our partner cooperatives
2022 was quite a year, and here are the highlights! The Union inaugurated new roasting and hosting facilities, La Familia Collective opened the first specialty coffee shop in San Miguel Escobar, and a faculty-led trip from the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire helped Ija’tz Cooperative build a new warehouse for their machinery.
How our partner cooperatives are celebrating the holidays
The spirit of the holidays can be felt throughout the community of San Miguel Escobar as we eagerly await celebrations, customs, and coming together. In preparation of the holidays, we asked second generation coffee producers in San Miguel Escobar what they look forward to the most this time of year.
Join us for another year of cultivating opportunity
We invite you to join us for another year of empowering coffee producers among our eight partner cooperatives.
Julia's entrepreneurship goes beyond coffee
Julia is one of the three women members of Young Entrepreneurs of San Miguel Escobar. As the daughter of some of the community’s first coffee farmers, when she was younger she accompanied her parents to the fields to harvest the ripened cherries. She now cultivates and processes her own beans, which she exports with nine other Young Entrepreneur members, all of whom are second generation producers.
Siblings carry on tradition while envisioning change| Q&A with Claudia & Luis
Siblings Claudia and Luis, second generation coffee farmers, have both decided to carry on the family tradition of cultivating coffee while envisioning a more just and inclusive industry.
Eduardo’s drive to expand his coffee production
This year, when De La Gente began accepting loan requests from the Young Entrepreneurs, Eduardo applied for and was granted a $1,050 loan to invest in fertilizer and equipment for maintaining the land he already owns. “I have always said that having this space in this group is a privilege to be part of and I feel happy and content to be part of it.”
Guillermo combats the effects of climate change in his fields
Guillermo’s fields flowered just a few months ago, instilling hope for the next harvest. “It has been a major help receiving the loan to be able to buy fertilizer for my coffee and treat my fields,” he says. “My goal is to buy more land and produce more coffee so that my production continues to grow.”