	The Emaus Scholarship Foundation's EXCHANGE FOR CHANGE PROJECT

Welcome to the Emaus Scholarship Foundation's EXCHANGE FOR CHANGE PROJECT web site!

The Emaus Scholarship Foundation of Illinois is a 501(C)3 non profit dedicated to providing educational opportunities to rural Honduran school children who live in the coffee growing regions outside of La Libertad, Comayagua. The first half of 2005 has been a busy one for us. Our four scholarship recipients have started school and recently received their first semester grades. Although their report cards were generally strong, we are looking into methods to help our students get additional help when necessary. It was also our first experience working with Claudia, our Honduran Liaison. One of our board members recently visited with Claudia to review her bookkeeping and to discuss how she felt our communication process was working. We are pleased to report that Claudia has all the financial information very organized with a single bank account but separate sub accounts for each student’s scholarship money. She continues to communicate with us weekly and meets with the students each Saturday to mentor them and assist them in any other ways possible. Financially, we have already raised enough money for 6 of the 11 scholarships we would like to provide next year.

However, as often happens, the first half of this year has not been entirely positive. When developing this project, we discussed many risks, including Juan Ramon running out of coffee, consumers not enjoying the coffee, and potential issues with the coffee in transit. One risk we did not foresee was a more than 400% increase in shipping costs. HonduCorr, the national mail system of Honduras, surprised us and much of Honduras by raising shipping rates from Honduras to the United States from approximately $2.00/pound to almost $8.00. This unexpected increase meant that we were unable to mail our first shipment of orders from the web page and had to scramble to find an alternative. We did eventually mail organic coffee grown on a nearby farm but processed for distribution in the USA. However, this cost the foundation more money per pound and does not seem to be a viable long-term solution. To resolve this issue, we are looking to partner with additional Honduran coffee producers who already have existing distribution in the USA, to help Juan Ramon process his coffee in the USA, or to find cheaper shipping alternatives. Unfortunately, we have not yet discovered a final solution and are not currently offering coffee through our web site. As soon as we have resolved this issue, we will be emailing our customers and marketing our coffee again to a larger audience.

This raise in the shipping rates has created a dilemma for our foundation. We previously anticipated that we could raise all the money we would need for our 2006 scholarships through coffee sales and private donations. That is no longer the case. Now we are actively seek financial assistance from other non-profit agencies who share our foundation’s mission and value the importance of providing educational opportunities in Honduras. If you have other ideas to help us or would like additional information, please contact us.

Please keep checking back for further updates. We appreciate your support.

Sincerely,

Board of Directors
Emaus Foundation
July, 2005