Through coffee, Troy students fund education costs for Guatemalan girls
TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- What difference can a few students make in changing the world? In the case of some middle school students in Troy, a lot.
Spanish teachers Bruce Chase and Christine Baseel don't just teach their students a new language, they also share with them the life and experiences of children their age in other countries. As Baseel put it, "Many students who come to Troy, only know Troy, so we want to show them what it's like in other parts of the world."
The students in this class focused on young women living in Guatemala. "The reality is, many of these children there are living on a dollar a day," said Chase.
That's a reality that shocked the kids in Troy. What truly surprised them, however, was what they learned next.
"At a certain age, girls no longer go to school because they can't afford to," Baseel said. "They either get married or start working in the fields, and that is their life."
That reality didn't sit well with the children in Troy. As one young lady put it, "If that were me, I'd want to go to high school. It's not fair they can't get an education because of a lack of money."
The kids in the Collar City decided to do something about it. They put on a fundraiser. Since coffee beans are one of the most popular exports from Guatemala, they decided to sell coffee.
First, that required asking a favor from Ryan McNaughton at Stinky's Coffee Company in Saratoga County.
"The teachers contacted me from Troy and asked, if they supplied the raw coffee beans, could I roast them up and package them for sale," said McNaughton.
Ryan did exactly that with the Troy students hand-painting the labels on the bags of coffee making them easy to sell. One student saying, "Once we told people what this was about, what we were trying to do, people were real excited to buy our coffee."
The kids sold so many bags, they will now change the lives of three Guatemalan girls by paying their entire education costs.
One young lady summed it up this way, "For those three girls, we changed their world."
With any luck, the class in Troy hopes to one day set up a video call with the girls in the small village who they helped, giving them a chance to say, "Gracias."