Caravan Coffee has partnered for 8 years with Newberg Early Bird Rotary Club for humanitarian projects in La Plata, Colombia. La Plata is our “sister city” where we not only give back but build relationships. We invest 5% of our monthly coffee club subscriptions into projects in La Plata.

This relationship in Colombia started almost a decade ago with an introduction from our Colombian coffee hunter, Alejandro Renjifo. He introduced me to a group of Colombian Rotarians in La Plata who were passionate about helping the poorest of the poor in their community. Through a series of meetings and personal visits in Colombia, we first started working together building biosand filters for the outlying areas where the drinking water was not clean. This led to many other projects over the years, including building a series of parks in depressed neighborhoods.

This year we are working on a sanitation project on a hillside above the city of La Plata. There, a community of about 400 have not treated their sewage in generations, which has not only polluted their own water table, but has contributed to polluting a river that flows down into the city of La Plata. This has lead to much sickness, which especially impacts the children who miss school due to dysentery and other maladies from poor hygiene.

This project has been complicated due to the steep terrain and heavy rainfall in the area that creates many washed out roads and landslides. There are no paved roads nor access to public utilities for this community. Due to these conditions, building a septic system requires bringing in supplies by horseback and manpower.

The following pictures are before and during the construction of the Sanitation Units with private toilets and baths using traditional septic systems. Completion of the project is anticipated this fall, when will send a group from our Newberg Rotary team to inspect the Sanitation Units and the impact that it is having on the community. In addition, we will be completing an assessment to discover the greatest needs for our next project. Stay tuned as we build relationships, change lives, and have fun.