Little Feet Blog

Little Feet is on the road once again; this time to Peru. Fifteen Little Feet Soccer players will spend over a week in the high mountains of Peru. The expedition will begin in Cusco where Little Feet has two days of soccer events planned with local schools and community organizers in the small villages surrounding this beautiful city. LF will then set off on a specially designed 4 day hike through the mountains of Peru where we will be passing out soccer balls to children in several small and poor villages. We will end our Peru trip in Canete, a city devastated by a 8.0 earthquake in 2007, where we will be running a soccer clinic for 300 children.

There are two ways you can help. Donate directly for this LF Peru trip.

Or purchase an item from the Little Feet Store.

Jose Maria Lara (affectionately known as Don Chema) Wife — Dona Angelica; Sons — Armando, Virgilio, Benedicto, Oscar, Nelson; Daughters – Doris, Angelica

In 1968, when Don Chema started out as a coffee farmer, plantations were strictly the more primitive, and certainly much taller, varieties of Bourbon and Arabia; labor was paid at 1 lempira per day ($.055) and nearly all of the houses in Capucas were straw huts without electricity or running, potable water.

Today, after years of sweat, and a coffee education offered up by his neighbors, and later on local agricultural extensionists, Don Chema’s farm is a well manicured, ordered plot of organic, caturra- variety coffee. Though he started out with just a single manzana of farmless land inherited from his father, over the years Don Chema has grown his coffee holdings to 4 ½ mz. With the profits that coffee farming has brought to him and his family through the years, Don Chema has built five houses, one each for four of his sons and after 10 years of marriage an upgrade from the straw hut with mud walls to an adobe house with tin roof for him and his wife.

Don Chema is one of the pioneers of the now flourishing coffee community of Capucas. Today labor is paid at 137 lempiras per day ($7.50), nearly all homes are made of brick, cement blocks or adobe, with teja (clay tiles) or aluminum-tin roofs, and almost everywhere you look you can see neat rows of caturra and catuaii coffee varieties dotting the hillsides. Through his participation in the Cooperative’s three socio-environmental certification programs as well as his initiative to plant lots of hardwood trees in between the rows of coffee he continues to be on the forefront of positive change in the community.

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It’s funny how most times it is the simplest and the quietest moments of life that become the more memorable. A few weeks ago, after making a round of visits to some of the producers’ homes I found myself in an impromptu photo shoot with some of the local kids: first pic – a 5-year-old scurried up a tree, swinging unconcerned on a too-bendy branch beside a sign as tall as he of the national cell phone company giant TIGO; second pic – a bunch of cousins and siblings all squished on a bench, arms weaving in and out of the others’ shoulders into one; third pic (upon request) – Franklin with a mini-chicken perched on his shoulder. The ridiculousness of his desire made Franklin giggle and his silliness made me smile.

As I started off home, a group of the kids followed in a string behind me under the pretext that they wanted more coloring pages. On returning to the house I couldn’t seem to find the coloring pages, but it didn’t seem to matter much; one of the girls just whispered in my ear, “Can we play?,” in a hopeful tone of voice. Perhaps the coloring pages were just a guise anyway.

I didn’t mind. We pulled out the plastic balls and began tossing and passing them around the patio. Soon I started lobbing limes from the trees at the kids and they darted here and there to avoid their fall. It’s nice to be reminded that most anything can be made into an entertaining toy. Soon the girls clump up into the middle of the patio cooking little patties of dirt in their “kitchen” and “planting” flowers snapped clean from their stalks in beds along the edges.

Soon darkness pushes the children towards home. Looking over her shoulder on the way out of the gate, Josely yells, “We’ll be back tomorrow to see if you’ve found the coloring pages!”

I hope they are.

By Rebecca Stygar: Peace Corp Volunteer living in Las Capucas

The USA kicks off against Panama in the Gold Cup Quarterfinals tomorrow. It’s a match the US should win, but Panama is a team that plays hard (they tied up Mexico 1-1), and the US roster has been changing faster than an WW II Army unit storming Omaha Beach. The list of players leaving the Gold Cup squad and heading back to their European Clubs for the preseason: Adu, Davies, Cherundolo, Parkhurst, Feilhaber is what elevated the team to a “B Team” rather than a “C-Team”. But whatever level team we have, it gives some players who are unproven at the international level a chance to step up. And it also gives Canada a chance to win something! Read more…?

Milledgeville, Ga. – Two members of the Georgia College & State University soccer team took time out of their summer to make a special trip to El Ayudante, Nicaragua. The Bobcats spread joy through soccer including presenting Little Feet soccer balls and GCSU soccer gear to the local youth. Read more…?

This letter was sent to Little Feet from a friend living in Las Capucas, Honduras with a request to post it to our blog.  Currently, all Little Feet Coffee is being purchased from Las Capucas.  We have become close friends with the farmers and their families who live in the community and have spent countless hours with their kids on the soccer fields.  These are remarkable people who enjoy a simple life and thirst to be paid fairly for their hard work in producing quality coffee.  Something Little Feet is attempting to give them.  Our thoughts are with them now. Here is the letter I just received in it’s entirety.  Read more…?