I am so so proud of my Don Simón Coffee Club volunteers – all students with an interest in selling our wonderful coffee. Yesterday at the COLEGIO BOLIVAR FARMER´s MARKET , we sold ALL our coffee!

The DON SIMÓN crew were fantastic at explaining the two types of coffee that we sold to our wider community – our Anaerobic Honey and Washed coffees. They told them the story of DON SIMÓN, how it is all managed by the club and the AGRICULTURAL PLANT SCIENCES class.

The president of the club, Martina Alban, supported by Vice President, Isabela Pachon, and our head of advertising/marketing Mariana Yusti, were true leaders, making the coffee, washing our French Presses, and educating the community about our coffee and selling delicious cups of coffee. In total 11 members came to sell.

The proudest moments I had was when listening to the interactions that were had with the wider community. “The school has a coffee plantation?”, “Where is it?” “Can we see it?” “What a great idea!”.

With this sale we now have club funds at over $US300, which are going to be used to buy equipment, consumables, organic fertilizers, and new cacao trees to replace those that perished (12) over the summer after our planting of 64 cacao trees. This will allow engineering projects to be funded, including an irrigation system for the greenhouse, a smokeless fire pit, and potentially a pizza oven.

Next weekend we invite the school and wider community to come to BOLIVAR GARDEN SATURDAYS and work with my agric students and other volunteers to harvest the rest of our coffee, process it and get it ready for our next farmer´s market and Christmas sales!