Junction City Coffee Shop Opens, Owners Giving Back To Coffee Bean Harvesters
From: centralillinoisproud.com
When you buy a cup of coffee at the recently opened Café Santa Rosa, the support stretches beyond Central Illinois. The impact is international.
Owner Marta Vidal and her husband, Heber are giving back to the South American community they call home. As immigrants from Colombia, they have seen the challenges that the country’s coffee harvesters face firsthand.
From the lack of medical care, childcare options and environmental safeguards, Marta said the Colombian farmhands also climb steep hillsides carrying up to 200 pounds of harvested coffee beans.
Marta said, “The harvesters and the baristas, they are lending their hands, their backs and they are the ones that get the [least] in the coffee chain production. So we want to challenge that.”
