How a college mission trip inspired a coffee business

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Jul 24, 2017 / 16:11 pm

When Matt Hohler was in college in 2010, he was a reluctant Catholic - and not a coffee drinker. 

That year, his mom gave him a trip to a college Catholic conference as a Christmas gift. It was a conference with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, which annually draws several thousands of college students seeking to know more about their faith. 

Hohler was not thrilled. 

"I remember being a bit sour about it," he told CNA. "I remember thinking I don't really wanna go, I thought it wasn't cool." 

But he went anyway, had a great time, and came back with a pull on his heart to go on a FOCUS mission trip to Honduras, "even though I remember not even knowing where Honduras was at the time," he recalled. 

He signed up for the trip, and the week he spent with FOCUS teaching catechesis in Honduras "was mind-bending to say the least." 

What struck him most was the Honduras people's extreme generosity amidst the experience of extreme poverty. 

"They just gave everything they had, and they had nothing," Hohler said.

That fascination with Honduras and desire to help those in need continued to grow, and eventually Hohler returned for a year to volunteer as an English teacher, a job he found through a connection from the trip. 

That year, he came home for Christmas break and was hanging out at grandma's house before the rest of the family arrived.  

While they waited, Hohler's grandmother pulled him into a hallway, where there had been a statue of the Virgin Mary for as long as Hohler could remember. 

"She said, 'There have been times in our lives where I swear we didn't have enough money, and we put money under the statue of Mary, and we'd come back and there would be more money than before,'" Hohler recalled. 

She told him to always remember to put God first, and handed her grandson $1,000 with simple instructions: "Go do something good with it." 

When he returned to Honduras, the search for that "something good" led Hohler to Sr. Maria, a Catholic nun who has dedicated her life to serving her community near Lake Yojoa, Honduras. Her nutrition-focused organization, Casa de Angeles, provides 100+ children at risk of malnutrition with lunches every day throughout the school year. 

As Hohler spent time with Sr. Maria and the children, he realized that many of the kids' impoverished families were coffee farmers, who were still making insufficient wages despite promises of markups after their coffee gained labels like "organic" and "fair-trade." (He also started to drink, and love, coffee.)

Hohler, along with like-minded friend Robert Durrette, decided to do what they could to get a fairer wage for small-scale coffee farmers in Central and South America. And that's how coffee start-up Levanta Coffee began. 

Taken from the Spanish reflexive verb "levantarse," Levanta means to wake up, but it can also mean to rise up. 

"By waking up each morning with a cup of Levanta Coffee, you're giving hard-working coffee farmers from Honduras and Peru the opportunity to lift themselves up economically," the businesses' Kickstarter page explains. 

The business model of Levanta cuts out nearly all of the middlemen involved in the process of most coffee sales – including fair trade coffee – that takes away from the profits that actually end up in farmers' hands. 

"We too used to think that 'Fair Trade' was the best way to support small scale farmers. We sipped our coffee believing we were helping farmers like Daniel and Rosa earn a good living. Problem is, that just wasn't true," Hohler and Durette explain on their Kickstarter. 

"'Fair trade' offers 20 cents more per pound of coffee, but very little of that extra money actually makes it back to small-scale farmers. Although they had been promised higher prices and better returns on their hard work, many coffee farmers are still struggling to put food on the table. In the best-case scenario, farmers might get a few hundred extra dollars per year. This translates into an income of $2,000-$4,000 a year for the average farmer who is often providing for a family of 4-6 people," they noted. 

The Levanta model will provide a 50 percent higher payment that will end up directly in the hands of the small-scale coffee farmers in both Honduras and Peru, where the pair has launched their startup. 

"Essentially what we're doing is taking a page out of what a lot of humanitarian aid is doing now, in terms of direct transfers. Rather than investing in aid in terms of professionals or food, or whatever it be, a lot of studies have found that just by giving them more cash and allowing them to make their own decisions, it's actually allowing for more and more development," Hohler explained.

In exchange, Levanta Coffee asks their farmers to share their personal stories with coffee drinkers around the world. 

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Co-founder Robert Durrette said he believes "the stories of the farmers we have partnered with is crucial to sparking change in the coffee industry. You will learn about their hardships and struggles, but also their successes – all while we deliver you better coffee."

"It gives you the opportunity to look at the coffee you drink in a more personal way, and you'll know exactly how this is being impactful," Hohler said. "We'll be following up year after year, making sure it's the right model, being really transparent and really inviting people into this story so they can experience it." 

The pair launched their Kickstarter on July 18th, and have already seen great results, with $32,348 of their $35,000 goal having been raised at the time this article was written. If they make their stretch goal of $50,000, they can partner with a third coffee producer. 

It hasn't always been easy – Hohler said he was questioned by several well-meaning friends and family about when he would "get a real job." But he's stuck to his decision, saying that he feels it's a call from God to put his faith into action. 

"The thing I wanted to do with my faith was to show it through action, and be an example of my faith in the way that I live, creating good in the way I live my life rather than telling someone what they should be doing," he said. 

"Evangelization through action is what I wanted to do." 

Learn more about Levanta Coffee, and the coffee farmers involved, on their Kickstarter page or by following them on Instagram or Facebook.