Cuppa Connections Episode 8: Travels to Peru

Join Marilyn Dryke, President of Cafe Feminino Foundation and her loving, educational, and humbling experiences while she visited the communities of Peru in the organizations quest to help the Cafe Feminino women coffee farmers of Peru. 

Marilyn has visited the communities of Peru over 20 times, since 2007. The organization has been a vital part of the women coffee farmers success.

What a heartfelt conversation! 

Share, download, and contribute to these magnificent Cafe Feminino women coffee farmers to help them to continue making great strides for themselves, their families, and growing their delicious coffee. 

You can donate directly to our grant for them on https://shop.betterwithacupofcoffee.com/pages/donation-to-the-cafe-femenino-foundation, our Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/betterwithacupofcoffee/ , or by purchasing our coffee lover goodies from our store, https://shop.betterwithacupofcoffee.com/
 A percentage will go to our grant as well.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Portia: 0:00

Hey guys, welcome to Cuppa Connections. I'm Portia, and we're here coming to you from our virtual cafe, Better with a Cup of Coffee. We are savoring relationships with coffee lovers around the world and sharing their experiences that have been better with a cup of coffee. Today's episode is called Traveled to Peru with the Cafe Feminino Foundation. Today's featured guests is Marilyn Dryke, the president of Cafe Feminino Foundation. This is such an honor. I've spoken to Marilyn so many times. She's helped me get on board with the foundation because Better with a Cup of Coffee is sponsoring some ladies in Peru, but I just wanted to talk to Marilyn because she has a vast amount of knowledge about these ladies that are doing something epic, and they have their movement that they have been doing for many, many years. These ladies are coffee farmers and who better to talk to about these coffee farmers, than the actual president of the foundation. I'm so excited. Welcome, Marilyn. How are you?

Marilyn: 1:08

I'm doing well. Thank you for inviting me.

Portia: 1:10

You're so welcome. How was the foundation started?

Marilyn: 1:15

Well, in 2004, it's kind of a combined story with the coffees for-profit side, Cafe Feminino, and then the foundation. So in 2004, the women coffee producers in Peru, approached the importer, Organic Products Trading Company, and wanted to know if they separated their coffee from the coffee production brought to the warehouse by the men, would the importer purchase their coffee. The importer said, well, depends on the quality and all of these things. So, they got together and started working on the whole process of what it would look like to separate the women's coffee. As a team, they came up with the name, Cafe Feminino, and the women's coffee when tested was superior quality, and they decided that they would ship their coffee to the warehouse in the black bags, with their name on it, and, strapped with a pink ribbon. And then, the importer got to get started selling the project to the coffee roasters around the world. Shortly after, the Cafe Feminino coffee project was launched, which also allows the women to receive the money directly into their own hands, rather than going into the hands of the men. The women came back and said, but there really are some other, other things that we could use. We could use some raised cooking surfaces, education for our children, health education for us and so on. And, that's when the foundation was formed. So we work with the same groups of people, the Cafe Feminino coffee producers. We are separate, we're a volunteer driven nonprofit, and we receive our funds from coffee roasters, coffee shops, coffee consumers, the coffee industry in general, a non profit organizations, such as Rotary and Soroptimist church groups.

Portia: 3:24

Right? Well, and I wanted to speak on the Cafe Feminino coffee. I've had them on, Lane Mitchell, the manager for Cafe Feminino Coffee, and to our podcast listeners, this is a separate entity. We are talking to a lady who has been with these ladies who are having these movements from day one. She has gone to Peru. She has visited communities. There's so many layers to the foundation and what the grants and then the donations can help these ladies do, and their families do.

Marilyn: 4:01

Our mission for the foundation is to enhance the lives of women and families in the remote coffee growing communities throughout the world with our hashtag granting hope worldwide. When I say remote coffee communities, I want your listeners to understand that we are not talking about coffee estates. So many people will say to me, oh, well, I visited a coffee estate and it's no, it is, it is just clearly not like that. I'm talking about remote coffee communities. I'm talking about a minimum of four hours by truck, over a dirty dusty bumpy road, to get just to a coffee community. And then from there, we get to go up the side of the mountain to these coffee farms. They are not coffee estates with neat little rows of coffee trees. These coffee trees are planted on the side of the hill. Their coffee is harvested by hand. It becomes the project of the community and the family during harvest time. I've had the honor and the privilege to go and pick coffee with them. Of course I don't pick for all that long and I'm not very good at it, but it certainly is a lot of fun.

Portia: 5:20

Right. For everyone who is listening and I have to say Marilyn's given me permission. Marilyn, you are going on 73 years old in August, and people I say this for the mere fact that Marilyn has been to Peru over 20 times. And she was talking to me about these stories, these trips, when they're traveling on these buses or these trucks just to get to these communities. I mean, the last time you, that you went Marilyn, you were saying that the hills are, the roads were washed out, but you couldn't turn back because you have these grants for these communities. So you had to trek it. You had to go up these roads that were blocked off by boulders and mud. So tell us about a story of, of how you had to get in there just to give these people these grants.

Marilyn: 6:08

Well, December of 2021 was my first trip back to Peru since the pandemic. So, there was a little discomfort with traveling internationally. What were we going to face? And nobody on my board was able or willing to travel with me. So, I had invited a young woman that I, I know quite well and she's a nurse and I thought that would be a good choice. She loves to travel. And so I'm telling her one of the things that we're going to do is go to a community where we funded a wet-mill beneficio. It was a very large project. I had visited there, the site of the project a year and a half prior to it being started, and I got all these pictures of the beautiful scenery and I told her, I said, well, it's going to be a really great visit because we're going to walk through the coffee farm. And it's not a difficult walk at all, but it is up high, but we're able to get, you know, most of the way by truck. And so we got there and, I knew that they had had an earthquake. I had seen it on the news. They had sent me videos. I did not realize that there was a landslide that went through this property and covered the trail, that we were going to walk on. So we pull up and they say, okay, we're getting out here. On the way up they had said, do you want a ride the donkey? I'd never riden a donkey. That would be really cool. I said to Coral, hey, you wanna ride the donkey? And, she goes, yeah, we're all excited. We're going to ride the donkey. And we get there, and the farmer says, oh, well, we're sorry, but it's not safe for the donkey today. It's not sounding good at all. Making this nice little calm walk that we were anticipating. We went straight up the side of the mountain Okay. As you've heard, I'm not young by any stretch of the imagination, but I do walk four to six miles a day.

Portia: 8:19

You are an inspiration.

Marilyn: 8:21

So I figure, okay, this is no problem. Well, there's really no trail. It's just kind of a tiny little, maybe the trail that donkey took a couple times, but up the side of the mountain, we go and, we did make it, and we did the dedication to the wet mill for the wet-mill dedicating it back to the community and cracked the champagne bottle and did our presentation. Well, it started to rain, and that little trail that we had gone up. And I use that term loosely, was now a little creek.

Portia: 8:56

Oh, my goodness.

Marilyn: 8:56

And so, that one picture that I sent to you was a picture of my legs. It's at that point, you decide, am I going to stay on my feet and just slush through the water or, try and stay clean them dainty. Nope. You just go right through the water and get down the hill. But, the funny part was the farmers were just running down that trail. I mean, I had a stick and I'm hanging on, but this is the life of these coffee producers. They have a tough life and these coffee farms are not easy to get to. And, the wet-mill beneficio that we had funded, was key to that community.

Portia: 9:38

What is a wet mill? Because that's one of the grants.

Marilyn: 9:41

It's a processing plant. So what happens when the coffee is, picked, it's brought into the central location. And from there, that's how they prepare the coffee then to go to the market. So, it goes through a series of steps where they have concrete tanks. The coffee bean is the center. It's red and it's covered in pulp. And then, there is around the coffee bean paragamino. So, when it comes in, it's put in the fermentation tank. Some of them float, some of them sink. They're separated. They go on to the next process. They ultimately end up in a pulpidor. Many of them, in many of the communities, it's done by hand. It's this machine where you pour the coffee cherry in and take a handle and grind it, and then the scent that takes off all of the pulp and then the coffee bean comes out the bottom. And from there, it goes onto a drying patio, and it stays there until it's dried to the proper amount of wetness, and then put in bags and taken down, but it's a long process. It's a hard process, but this plant that we were dedicating had an electric pulpidor. That was really a huge benefit to this community. That just demonstrates, how difficult it is for these coffee producers. And that's only one example because there were then down into the home. They feed us a lunch and when I say home, it's where they live, but there are structures that have dirt floors, open fire cooking. It's not something we're used to. It's a much different living environment.

Portia: 11:31

When you talk about the open fire, I remember you would discussed how detrimental the smoke inhalation is to the ladies that are cooking. Guys, it's just not one grant that takes care of items to produce coffee. It's various things. So you were saying that one of the grants, provides a better cooking..

Marilyn: 11:55

When the foundation started in 2004, you need to know that the grants that we're funding are requests that we receive directly from the women. The Cafe Feminino Foundation does not go out and say, hey, we've got money, we're going to send it to you for this. They send us a list of requests every year, and those can be found on our website, as available grants. But, they focus on health and nutrition and education, and they are small grants. The grants normally cover the cost of the materials, all of the labor for these grants is provided by the community, but the kitchen projects being the first kind of like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you start at the bottom and, build from there and their kitchens, being open fire and enclosed, the whole wall behind it is totally black. And so, respiratory disease is prevalent in these remote coffee communities. Since 2004, we have been funding raised cooking surfaces, and ventilating those stoves to the outside. One story that I like to tell about that is it's so exciting for these women to know that they are getting these raise cooking surfaces and ventilations. We were in our truck delivering one year and, we came around the corner, and we saw these women standing there, just standing on the side of the road. It was hot and they had these cloths over their heads, but they were standing there and the minute that trucks stopped, they just went running up to the truck, and they were so excited to be receiving these stove tops, which are like a steel stove top covering where they can put it over their open fire, and then the pipes, to ventilate that smoke to the outside. They received them. They were gracious. They were excited. I've got the best pictures of that stop, and those women putting those stove pipes over their shoulders and carrying them up to their houses and getting ready to, put those stoves in. It's a life changing project because they no longer have to cook and breathe that smoke. You can see it. They don't paint the walls. But now you know, that they're not breathing that day in and day out.

Portia: 14:31

Right. That's just one way that is providing a better life for these, families. Then you have the water reservoirs, beekeeping. You have helped with their garden as well?

Marilyn: 14:42

Right? All of our grants, are focused on health or income diversification. The beekeeping projects and the organic gardenings are opportunities for those families to produce a second income. Coffee produces an income once a year. And that's why it's, it's so important for the women to be receiving this money and having the opportunity to budget and spend that money and make it, stretch for the whole year. When the men were receiving all of the money, it didn't happen that way. A lot of times the men wouldn't get the money home. They get it in their hands and end up having a little party with it and, not supporting the education of their girls and, providing for their families. So the women now receive the money directly from their coffee, from the Cafe Feminino coffee. Also, the Cafe Feminino coffee producers, the women have to have ownership in their coffee farm, which is also, an very important component to being able to empower these women. So, they have ownership into their farm. They are given incentives that are different for the quality of their coffee from those incentives received by the men. The one story I will share about that part of it is that one of the female coffee producers who was involved in the beginning of Cafe Feminino. One of the last times we went to her coffee farm, her husband, Enrique was introduced to us as her employee.

Portia: 16:21

Oh wow!

Marilyn: 16:22

Her farm manager. He had signed over the deed to his coffee farm to his wife.

Portia: 16:31

What?!

Marilyn: 16:31

And the reason for that, is because she had more financial incentives than he did. And just a more personal connection and community story. He did get COVID and he almost did not survive. And in December when we visited their house, he has decided now, remember he no longer is a coffee farm owner. He is now harvesting trout, and he has all of these tanks where he's raising the trout. There was a foundation that was under construction, and I asked what that was for. He's building a restaurant. So, he's going to be serving trout. Of course, his wife Sabina will be the chef and, he bought her a stove, an electric stove.

Portia: 17:21

Oh wow.

Marilyn: 17:22

In 2004, they did not have electricity, but since then they do. Anyway, she said, yes, he bought me this electric stove to cook his fish. However, I'm not going to be using that. I am going to be using, I'm going to be using my wood fire stove.

Portia: 17:44

Oh my goodness.

Marilyn: 17:45

It's like the perfect example of how the Cafe Feminino F oundation grants have enhanced the lives of that family. We do have what we call a healthy living micro loan that we started funding, many years ago, and the women can apply for a loan and then they pay it back. They manage it. They apply the interest. They do the whole thing. We just provided as a foundation, the seed money for that project.

Portia: 18:15

Right.

Marilyn: 18:15

And, Sabina and her family have had several micro loans. They no longer have a dirt floor in their house. They have linoleum. They no longer have an outhouse. They have, a separate building with a toilet that flushes and running water and a shower. And this last time there was another little room that had been added on and there was a washing machine in there. It's just the perfect example of how they have benefited from all of the grants that the Cafe Feminino Foundation has been able to provide to them. They really are a unique family in that they are about four hours by truck from the city of Chiclayo. Part of that is by paved road, but you do go up into the mountains over the dirt, bumpy roads, but their property, short walk from the house and through the coffee, there's a beautiful waterfall.

Portia: 19:13

Oh wow!

Marilyn: 19:14

Catarata, which we have visited many times. Their goal has always been to provide an eco lodge up there. And so, they're going to work towards that dream.

Portia: 19:27

So, providing an eco lodge for tourists for visitors to come. Their lives have been transformed by Cafe Feminino Foundation a little bit at a time. And the coffee. Yes. It's enhancing these women's lives. I remember you were telling me about when you had said that you needed to go to the restroom, and you found yourself in the restroom, you were in there for a minute, you were taking pictures, but it was the lady who got a loan from you all to enhance her life to build her family a bathroom.

Marilyn: 20:01

Yes, with the shower and running a flush toilet.

Portia: 20:04

Tell us a little bit more about the grants that we can adopt. For example, I want to know about the beekeeping, which that is another way of enhancing their lives because they can sell the honey. And that provides a way of, an income for them.

Marilyn: 20:19

It's a great opportunity for the coffee producers that really want to be an entrepreneur. These beekeeping projects are usually supported or requested by a team, a husband and wife team, and they make the commitment that they are going to start this business. So as a foundation, we have actually we're there to deliver the first beekeeping project to the community of Taya Pompa. So, we pulled up in our trucks, and they unloaded all of the beehives, the bee boxes, and all of the equipment to become a beekeeper. It was the original initial workshop on how to start beekeeping.

Portia: 21:05

You have the beekeeping, you have the wet mills. You have getting the ventilation for the cooking.

Marilyn: 21:12

Um, water reservoirs also. Water reservoirs are very important. Where they sit, they have to have a place to be able to get the water from the highest parts of the mountain, down to where the coffee is grown. And so, they are requesting raw water reservoirs in many of the communities. Basically what they're doing is going up the side of the mountain. And I can tell you, they go up the side of the mountain, chop part of the mountain off, and then dig the hole for the reservoir. They carry by mule, the liner for that water reservoir. I did that hike, in the middle of the day and I'm slow. I mean, I walk a lot, but I'm slow. And so, it's like, this. They'll tell me. It's gonna take an hour, and I go, hmm, that means it's gonna take me two hours, maybe a little bit more. But, they also don't know how to tell time very well. It'll say, we'll be there in just a minute, just shortly, in 15 minutes. Well, two hours later, you're still waiting. And so that's kind of a joke. That's like, okay, is this Peru time? Is this Isabel time? Anyway, so, up the side of the mountain I go, and we get there and they're showing that the water's coming down on the side of the mountain in like a PVC pipe, and it's trickling into the water reservoir. And then on the front of the reservoir is a spicket, another pipe that runs it down to the coffee farm also to the organic gardens. So, we're up there. We're looking at all of this. This is great. And they say, do you want to see the water source? And I go, well, where's that? Oh, well it's up to the mountain and around the corner I go, no, I think I'm good. There's water. I know it's coming. This is a great. It's hard work, but the benefits pay off because the water from the reservoir is so important to the overall production of coffee and the quality of the coffee. So, all of these things linked together, the water reservoirs, the bees, then the wet-mill and drying patios, every step of the way, impacts the end product, the quality of the coffee. The better the quality, the more money that the coffee producers can make. They make so little compared to everybody else that's touching this product along the way. You know, when you think about the fact that the coffee producers are living, for the most part in a home, a lot of cases, without electricity, with dirt floors, in a house that's made of mud, bricks of mud and, straw, and they're cooking over an open fire. And in 2004, those fires were not ventilated. And then where we live, my first trip was right before Christmas and I felt so guilty coming home and thinking about cooking Christmas dinner and what was sign number one. Oh, how many cookies can I bake in the next three weeks? You know, and what food am I going to put on my table? and gosh, I wish I had two ovens. Whoa,

Portia: 24:28

Yes.

Marilyn: 24:29

Perspective.

Portia: 24:30

Absolutely.

Marilyn: 24:31

And so, that's why I have, continued to volunteer my time for the Cafe Feminino Foundation. The president's role and the acting volunteer executive director does not get paid, but I get paid in amazing experiences and watching these women in these communities grow and change over time. The other projects worth mentioning are the early education centers. And we have funded for years now, 15 early education centers. And, the reason for that is that these centers are focusing, on eliminating or at least improving malnutrition in these remote coffee communities. They don't have a lot of food. These children are severely malnourished and these children are the future and they have to have reasonable health to be able to grow and learn and go to school, in years So, two or three times a year, the grants for the early education centers, send a nurse to the communities, to these 15 communities. They take the height and weight for these children, and then the nurse, his role is to educate the teacher, the parents, and the children, while they're there. Give them information on what foods are available in their community. What can they plant in their garden? What can they have that's a good source of protein. They, over time have been growing, quinoa or quinwicha, very high in protein. Some of the grants that we have funded have been for small breeding animals, small breeding animals are kui. Kui are Guinea pigs,

Portia: 26:15

Ah, okay.

Marilyn: 26:16

And very high in protein, but that's also one of the things that is served to us when we visit some of the communities,

Portia: 26:25

And, it would be disrespectful to turn that down. Imagine, right?

Marilyn: 26:28

Yes.

Portia: 26:29

So, that's just how things are when you visit other cultures, other countries. And some times they only have a little bit of something to eat, and then they offer that to you. You can't say no.

Marilyn: 26:42

No, no, you can't. You cannot say no. And it's very hard to get past the fact that when they do give you a plate that most often it's not Kui. That's usually for very special occasion, but usually it's a plate of yuca, beans, rice, and some piece of chicken.

Portia: 27:01

Okay.

Marilyn: 27:02

But, they are gracious, wonderful hosts.

Portia: 27:05

I am so interested about who they are, meaning their personalities. They seem so welcoming, no matter how much they have or how little they have. What is the overall community feel like when you enter into their world?

Marilyn: 27:20

Shy?

Portia: 27:21

Are they?

Marilyn: 27:22

They are shy. We have traveled a couple times a year, for years. And so some of the communities are very familiar with us and we've watched the children grow and from babies up to teenage years and they interact with us a lot, but, last time we visited a brand new community and they all were there. We were delivering hot chocolate on Pannetone bread, which is our December activity. We provide La Chocolatada to the communities in Peru, the coffee producing communities, and that's simply providing the party for the community. It's a tradition that has started in Peru and it's funded a lot by the service organizations, but they tend to only deliver within so many miles from the main city. So, for us to fund this project and deliver to all of these remote communities, that's a really big deal. We went into the community of La Crea when we were there in December, and they had never seen us before. Now, one I'm older. Two, I have blonde hair, and, my skin is white. So, I do not look like anyone from that community. So, they're all staring at me, and coral is with me. And, so we do our thing. We get to cut all of the Pannetone bread and we get to serve it to them. And we bring candy canes, and we can usually get the kids to interact with us in play.

Portia: 28:52

Right.

Marilyn: 28:53

We were able to have a little bit of interaction. But as soon as the formal part of this program was over, they were gone. Women were gone, the men are gone. The only things left there were the dogs. So we're standing there thinking, okay, well this is over and turn and look. And there's a building behind us and peeking around the side of the building were this whole little line of faces. They were standing behind the corner looking at us. But they are very friendly, very, curious, They often will want to touch our hair or look in our fingernails. They do give me a bad time. Cause I couldn't peel the orange with my fingernails. So they told me that they're worthless. And what we offer to help. And so one time they had me peeling potatoes, but they gave me like a machete. I mean, it was the biggest knife I've ever had my hands. And then the question was don't you cook at home? Well, yeah, I don't have a machete. So they do like to have fun with us and tease us because obviously we're different.

Portia: 30:18

Right.

Marilyn: 30:19

They are hard working. One of the things that has happened for some of the women in Peru is they have been given leadership opportunities that they would never have happened have had before Cafe Feminino and Cafe Feminino Foundation. They have a group of women who are now coffee, inspectors. So, they've taken on roles in their organization and then in their community, and then the broader, coffee cooperative. And, in order to become. an inspector, they have to go to classes, they have to take tests, they have to pass them, and only then can they apply for the job of coffee inspector? That comes with an additional income. So then again, we are supporting income diversification and there were seven, coffee inspectors this last year and five of them were women.

Portia: 31:14

Whoa.

Marilyn: 31:15

Yeah, that was,

Portia: 31:16

That is huge.

Marilyn: 31:18

Yeah.

Portia: 31:18

That is amazing though.

Marilyn: 31:21

Now, we are only talking about Peru. If you go onto our website, you'll see that we have funded in 10 different countries,

Portia: 31:28

So, you have Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Guatamala, Dominican Republic.

Marilyn: 31:34

We have funded in Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Rwanda, and Sumatra.

Portia: 31:40

Although each one is different, some may be more advanced than the others, it's still a step forward.

Marilyn: 31:46

It definitely is because remember it starts with the Cafe Feminino coffee program itself. So, they have that basic structure. The women do have to have some ownership or their name on the deed. It's a little bit different in Sumatra, but for the most part, it's the same, but they all have their own women's cooperative, their women's Cafe Feminino group. The other thing that we have funded, that I think is really interesting are, we call them, Casa Feminino, and it is a building that is built for having community meetings. Primarily for a place for the women in the community to get together and have their meetings, but the men use it also, but the key component to each of this is that each one has one room that is a safe house. So, if a woman finds herself in an abusive relationship, she can go and take her children and go to the safe house, so that they aren't experiencing the abuse.

Portia: 32:51

And, where exactly are these?

Marilyn: 32:55

Well, we have funded several of them in Peru, in different communities. It depends on what they're asking for. So, if it's a community where maybe abuse is a problem, and they don't have a place to meet, then that will be one of the requests. We have in one community an old abandoned medical facility that they submitted a request to restore that facility and make it into a Casa Feminino, and it's really large. It has a restroom, a room that is large enough for the community to store coffee, it has its meeting room, and it's room that's set aside with the beds, bedding, and curtains, where a woman can go.

Portia: 33:38

And, that's why I sought Cafe Feminino Foundation out. It was something about these women that I felt that I had to be a part of, and then you gave me the opportunity to select the grant that was available. And, I just am so grateful. it reaches so many people within the community, And I can't say enough for your organization to help us find a way to contribute.

Marilyn: 34:02

Well, we sure appreciate it, and I'm really pleased that you did reach out and that we've been able to work together because we have actually been talking for almost a year now. And, hopefully we'll be able to fund your wet-mill beneficio improvements this year. That is in a community that of Hierba Buena in Lambayeque, Peru. And, once this is funded, it is going to fund the materials for the two fermentation tanks, six cement drying patios, and six solar dryers. And all of that is so key to the quality of coffee that these coffee producers are able to send to market. You know, a lot of things they do by hand, it's just really, really hard. This provides, these two fermentation tanks, that community will be able to use and share, rather than each individual having their own process that they go through to accomplish there end results. Drying patios are key, solar dryers. The coffee can only have certain amount of moisture in it. If it has too much moisture, then it ferments in the bags. Then it's no good. These coffee producers go through a lot to get their coffee from the farm just to get it down into the main coffee plants.

Portia: 35:25

It's such a noble cause. And, I'm just happy that I'm a part of it.

Marilyn: 35:29

Well, I'm happy. You're a part of it as well.

Portia: 35:32

Well, thank you. This has been fascinating. Thank you for the stories and just sharing about these ladies lives and the community's lives, just in Peru alone. But, I know that there's so many other stories, but this is a great start for people to.

Marilyn: 35:47

Oh, I could go on forever.

Portia: 35:50

So. Tell people the website.

Marilyn: 35:54

Well, you can go to cafefemininofoundation.org, but that's a little bit harder because it's usually misspelled. So, we actually have cffoundation.org, much easier. And then, you can click on grants and then a list of available grants. If you want to adopt a grant, then you would just email me and let me know. If you go down below, there are some funded grants. And so, it lists by country, the grant, and gives you a summary of the grant request and then, a project report and then pictures. So you find out a little bit more about the projects and the impact that they've had, on the women, on the communities.

Portia: 36:40

I'm providing links for the grant that Better with a Cup of Coffee is taking on in our Instagram or Facebook, social media pages, but also on a betterwithacupofcoffee.com.

Marilyn: 36:52

And, on our website this morning, we have slides on the front home landing page. So, we put a slide up for your project and, it clicks over to a donation page.

Portia: 37:05

Well, thank you.

Marilyn: 37:05

When you make the donation, there'll be a little dropdown that pops down. And, it actually shows, the wet-mill project in Hierba Buena. So people can actually select that and make their donation. And, you will get a report back to let you know who's actually made those donations. Well, that's lovely.

Portia: 37:25

Come on guys. Let's support these women. Thank you so much, Marilyn. I am grateful. I know the audience has just been educated and anyone who's listening. I'm grateful that you are listening. You are also on, Facebook and Instagram as well, correct?

Marilyn: 37:41

Yes.

Portia: 37:41

So everybody can find you.

Marilyn: 37:44

Yes, they can. Absolutely. And I just want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to come on and share my passion for helping these women. And, to ask you to keep me in mind as I travel next to Peru in July. I'm probably going to be there close to three weeks this time. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures and information up there as we travel to visit our projects. So if you're interested, you can check out our website and see what's happening.

Portia: 38:16

Absolutely. We will definitely keep you in mind. Safe travels and much love.

Marilyn: 38:21

Thank you.

Portia: 38:22

Until next time. I'm Portia White, and I hope you've enjoyed today's conversation. I like to give a special thanks to our sponsor, betterwithacupofcoffee.com. If you would like to help the magnificent women coffee farmers of Peru continue to make great strides for themselves, their families and growing their delicious coffee. you can donate directly to Better with a Cup of Coffee's grant on our website, Instagram, or Facebook pages. Also, when you purchase our our coffee lover goodies from our store, a percentage will go to our grant as well. Thank you for listening and join us again soon on Cuppa Connections.