Late Nite Reading is playing at The 7 Venue in Douglasville, GA. Photo by Stanley Leary

Two worlds collide a few times a week in Douglasville, GA. A little over eight years ago, Tony Hart had a moment with God that had him open up The 7 Venue. The 7 Venue gives people a cool, safe place to hang out, have fun and see a good show. They have fantastic sound and lights. The 7 has two underground and ballroom concert rooms, an acoustic stage, and a mini ramp to skate.

They are an all-ages music venue. It has a lot of shows. Most of them are hardcore and metal shows.

When Tony first opened up, they only had “Christian Bands.” He wasn’t reaching the group he had hoped to get.

Photo by Stanley Leary

As Tony says, they were preaching to the choir. He then opened the venue to all bands with just request, with no foul language from the bars. Mostly, they do their best to honor Tony’s request.

Gary Leftwich, a volunteer at The 7 Venue, cooks grilled cheese sandwiches for anyone there. They are free. Photo by Stanley Leary

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucxqdvB-1RI&w=560&h=315]

Many who attend the concerts would never go to a church or feel comfortable going to one, but they think they are delighted here at The 7 Venue. They are enjoying their music, and most of all, they are enjoying the hospitality of the volunteers.

Jocelyn performs at The 7 Venue. Photo by Stanley Leary

My daughter has been following the band from Indiana Late Nite Reading for a few years. For her birthday we gave her tickets to go to the concert. I took her and her friend to see the band, which is why I was at this special place.

Drew Cottrell, the drummer for Late Nite Reading, hangs with my daughter and her friend before the concert. Photo by Stanley Leary.

Every once in a while, you run across something that everyone likes. One thing that comes to mind for me is ice cream. Very few people don’t like it.

While not everyone is a coffee drinker, almost everyone who hears this story learns how just being a conscientious consumer can change the lives of a community.

In the small town of Salvador Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico, where they grow arabica and robusta coffee, life is much better than in 2001. Back then, the price they were getting for a bag of coffee was about $30, and today, they are getting $160 for that same size bag.

When you can help a community by just giving the farmers in that community the ability to buy a coffee roaster changes their lives forever.

They repaid that loan to the group of ecumenical churches that gave them $20,000. Now they are taking care of that community in so many ways.

Those small storefronts are full of supplies because those in the community can now afford to buy from them.

Coffee is the most labor-intensive crop one can grow. From the time of just planting a seed to your first harvest can take three years. Once your plants are ready to harvest, it can take a few months to finish the harvest and weeks to de-pulp, dry, husk, and then roast the coffee.

Every day while I was in Salvador Urbina, my host Pelayo spread the Robusto coffee to dry it before going to the roaster.

Just three years ago, since I visited the community, I could see changes. Most of all, I saw more laughter and smiles than even before. The reason was they were able to live as families in the community.

While traveling in Mexico, I was privileged to have a few meals with mole sauce. We gathered at one of the coffee farmer’s homes in Salvador Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico, for dinner, and they prepared chicken with mole sauce for the group.

For those who love good Mexican food, this is one of the meals you can tell if they know how to cook good Mexican food. Unfortunately, the taste gives away the hands that prepared it as authentic.

Here are sacks of coffee waiting to be husked. The coffee can keep for years like this. Then, when the roaster needs more coffee, they ask the coffee farmers in Salvador Urbina to send more of the husked coffee. This is when they husk the coffee, which takes off the outer shell of the coffee bean just before it is roasted.

They do this before shipping to their cooperative roaster in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, so that the weight of the coffee also is less and saves them money.

The coffee on the left looks like before it is husked. On the right is what is called green coffee beans. On the right is what it looks like after being husked.

In 2001, coffee farmers who would later form the Just Coffee Cooperative were struggling to feed their families. Many farmers sold their land and crossed the US border, looking for work to survive. Unfortunately, coffee farmers were struggling as hard as the corn farmers.

Here is an excerpt from the Economy in Crisis story from February 5, 2011, Illegal Immigration and NAFTA

One of the largely overlooked aspects of the North American Free Trade Agreement is the fact that the failed trade pact has been the catalyst for the massive increase in illegal immigration over the past two decades or so.

An influx of highly subsidized corn flooding the Mexican market has displaced millions of rural farmers, according to McClatchy Newspapers. Prior to the implementation of NAFTA, Mexican officials claimed that factory jobs would fill the void left by disappearing work on family farms.

Mexican officials had promised that NAFTA would result in the “export of goods, not people.” That, however, has turned out to be far from reality.

Since NAFTA was signed into law, illegal immigrants in the U.S. has increased to 12 million today from 3.9 million in 1993, accounting for an overall increase of over 300 percent. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 57 percent of those entering the country illegally are from Mexico.

“The numbers of people displaced from family farming were much, much higher than the number of new wage jobs,” Jonathan Fox, an expert on rural Mexico at the University of California at Santa Cruz, told McClatchy Newspapers.

Those displaced workers are largely the result of U.S. corn exports to Mexico. Heavily subsidized American Agribusiness not only put hundreds of thousands of American family farms out of business, but also dumped billions of dollars worth of American agricultural products into the Mexican market, putting millions of peasant farmers out of business.

Between 1994 and 2001, the flood of cheap, subsidized American corn caused the price of the crop to fall 70 percent in Mexico. The drop in prices caused millions of farm jobs to disappear, with the numbers falling from 8.1 million in 1993 to 6.8 million in 2002.

Those out-of-work farmers make up the bulk of the illegal immigrants entering the U.S. each year. Unable to compete with their highly subsidized American competitors – $10 billion in 2000 alone – rural Mexican farmers have increasingly sought employment in the U.S.

The fence along the border hasn’t solved this problem of lack of work for the migrant. However, those buying Just Coffee are helping those coffee farmers rebuild their community.

We can help solve some of the world hunger by just being informed consumers that when we spend our dollars are aware of where the products come from. Fair Trade certification is one way to know if what you buy is helping those at the bottom of the chain.

The Presbyterian Church USA has offered the Just Coffee Cooperative a grant to help them pay for the certification process. Hopefully, shortly after the cooperative votes on accepting this grant, they will be official.

Ruth Farrell, Coordinator for Presbyterian Hunger Program at Presbyterian Church, explains how Fair Trade certification works for the cooperative.

Bryce Wiebe, Associate for Enough for Everyone at Presbyterian Church USA, talks about how he now thinks about how Just Coffee lets him feel good about drinking it since he knows that the cooperative operates on the standards of Fair Trade.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no-aRv_hwjM]
While I appreciate a great mole sauce and know that it is authentic Mexican, the certification of Fair Trade lets me know that those who are part of the food chain are being compensated fairly and are no longer hungry like the Just Coffee Cooperative farmers were back in 2001.

You are either part of the problem with World Hunger or part of the Solution. Which one are you?

David Cifuentes Velazquez, the coffee grower and member of the Just Coffee Cooperative enjoys sharing with a visiting group how coffee is grown.

The personal testimony is so powerful. This past week I was privileged to hear personal stories after another of how Just Coffee Cooperative was changing their lives.

David Cifuentes Velazquez was so excited that due to the cooperative forming, his son had returned from working in the states to Salvador Urbina, Chiapas, Mexico, where the family farmed coffee. David went on to tell about how each of his children lived next door to his home.

Every night we were there, the family all came together, singing long into the night. Many from the group that was part of a delegation to learn more about Just Coffee joined and sang along with them.

Each morning the delegation would gather and review what we were experiencing. For example, one morning Whitney Moss of Greer, South Carolina, said she had not laughed this much before. She was touched by how everyone in the community enjoyed one another and how the conversations were full of joy and laughter.

As we walked around the community, the people always smiled at us and greeted us.

Joshua Ediger was one of the participants in the delegation. He is from Reedley, California, where he works as a manager of a local café. As we saw the coffee in all the stages, from growing, harvesting, de-pulping, drying, and roasting, Joshua could not stop commenting on how exciting this was to see and experience.

In his own words, Joshua talks about how this experience has changed him.

To order Just Coffee, go to their website www.JustCoffee.org.