World language students at Franklin Regional Senior High School went door to door recently selling Nicaraguan Coffee! The coffee is produced by a small co-op of growers in Nicaragua, Central America who can't afford to get their product to the market place.

The coffee beans came to Pittsburgh through the efforts of Donna Tabor, a former Pittsburgh TV producer and Peace Corp volunteer. Currently, Ms. Tabor operates a school for homeless boys in Nicaragua. She is often confronted with community problems. When it was brought to her attention that 10,000 pounds of coffee couldn't get to the market place and that the co-op families were suffering because of the situation, she jumped into action. Donna solicited the aid of the Pittsburgh-based organization Building New Hope. It is the work of the Building New Hope staff and several business people in the Strip District of Pittsburgh that finally brought the Nicaraguan coffee to market.

The Franklin Regional High School students and I learned of the coffee situation while attending a Building New Hopes meeting. We were introduced to the idea of selling the coffee as a fundraiser. As we left the meeting, we discussed how we would organize the project and who would benefit from our efforts. In the meantime, I received a flyer from the University of Pittsburgh announcing a campaign to raise money for a new Latin American & Caribbean Nationality Room. www.pitt.edu/~natrooms. That was it! Our decision was made! We would donate the profits from our coffee selling efforts to the Latin American & Caribbean nationality room campaign and to Donna's school in Nicaragua.

To date, the students have sold enough coffee to donate $1000 to the University of Pittsburgh's newest nationality room project, and over the past two years, another $2000 was donated to Tabor's school in Nicaragua. The students are proud of the work they are doing. They feel involved and happy to be able to help.

The coffee is an easy sell. It is truly spectacular! If you are looking for a fundraiser to assist your favorite school project, while teaching your students a valuable lesson, look no further! You will be helping the coffee growers co-op, and your own project at the same time! Everyone wins! Contact Building New Hope at:  www.buildingnewhope.com.

*The coffee is generally sold for $10 a pound, $2 of which is retained by the seller for his/her fund raising project. The balance goes to the coffee co-op in Nicaragua.

Editor's Note: Jeff Poole is a Spanish language teacher at Franklin Regional senior high school. Jeff is very well traveled and often serves as the faculty coordinator – taking high school students abroad. His most recent travels have taken him to Spain, Costa Rica, Honduras, Cuba, and Nicaragua. Jeff meet Donna Tabor while participating in a Center for Latin American Studies curriculum development research project in Nicaragua during the summer of 2002.