News

I decided to stop yapping about America's illegal-immigration problem and solve it.

So I got into my truck, drove from the newspaper's downtown office to the stark, lovely desert foothills of north Phoenix where I . . . bought a couple of pounds of Mexican coffee.

Done.

After all of our arguing over border fences, law enforcement and civilian patrols, it turns out that the solution to illegal immigration doesn't lie with Sheriff Joe, but with a cup of joe.

"This really is a proactive way of engaging people on both sides of the immigration issue," said Debbie DiCarlo, who works with the ministry outreach programs at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Phoenix, one of several congregations in the Valley that work with Just Coffee (Café Justo), a Mexican farming cooperative designed to help villagers earn enough money to keep them from crossing into the U.S.

"Here is something simple, buying coffee, that a person can do knowing that it will positively affect people's lives in this country and in Mexico," DiCarlo said. "It helps solve the problem."

The idea started a few years back at a Presbyterian ministry called Frontera de Cristo, which operates in Douglas and neighboring Agua Prieta. It was started by the Rev. Mark Adams and Douglas resident Tommy Bassett III.

"In the mid-'90s the amount of suffering, fear and pain regarding the issue of migration really began to affect the faith communities here in Douglas and in Agua Prieta," Adams told me. "Folks were showing up at the church who'd almost died in the desert. Local ranchers were affected by cut fences and trash. As a ministry, we wanted to respond in a faithful and responsible way that went beyond a Band-Aid approach."

The answer came when Adams met a bruised and battered migrant named Eduardo Verdugo.

"He told me that he was a farmer," Adams said. "He was embarrassed to have crossed the border. He didn't want to do it. He was a coffee farmer, but he didn't make enough money to survive. He told me, 'Salir de nuestra tierra es sufrir.' - 'To leave our land is to suffer.' Imagine that. Being hunted like a criminal and nearly dying in the desert didn't make him suffer. It was having to leave his land."

Verdugo and other coffee growers in his village in Chiapas were at the mercy of corporate concerns that left them too impoverished to feed their families. So, Adams and Bassett decided to help the small community (called Salvador Urbina) form a cooperative to grow, ship and roast their crops. They then helped Mexicans in Agua Prieta obtain a roaster to handle the crop. Finally, they began shipping the organic coffee produced and roasted by the cooperative to different church congregations in the U.S.

And it worked. The farmers now have a life in the land that they never wanted to leave.

The coffee is available at $10 a pound at several Valley churches, including St. Paul's, St. Patrick's Catholic Community in Scottsdale, the All Saints Catholic Newman Center in Tempe, Pinnacle Presbyterian Church in Scottsdale, University Presbyterian Church of Tempe and others, as well as through the Internet at http://www.justcoffee.org/ or by calling 1-866-545-6406.

The success of Just Coffee led the folks in Douglas to create the Fair Trade Center to expand the model used in Chiapas to other parts of Mexico, other countries and other industries.

"This is a way of fostering justice between borders," the Rev. Adams told me. "It heartens me as a person of faith, but this still is a small scale. We'd really like the model to grow and grow. We just have to be patient, pray and work hard."

His faith and the Mexican farmers have taught him that a great idea, like great coffee, takes time to percolate.

Reach Montini at 602-444-8978 or ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.