At DISTRICT Roasters, our partnerships are our backbone. We are meticulous about finding the right people to work with and once we do, we rely on them to source product and complete source-based projects all over the world. Here we’ll introduce you to the three types of partners-in-coffee we’re proud to work alongside every day.

1. Source Partners

Source Partners are those who assist directly in obtaining the absolute highest-quality, organic, fair and/or direct trade coffee and coffee products around the world. They adhere to the the highest standards in not only coffee quality, but also the oversight in labor and wage management, community reinvestment, and local farmer education and yield optimization projects.

2. Project Partners

Our Project Partners are the individuals and organizations we can count on to identify, qualify, and complete source-based economic, health, community development, job creation, and DISTRICT reinvestments.

3. Our Customers

We are always quick to point out that you have a role to play in this. We consider our each and every one of our valued customers to be close partners because it is your ongoing support that enables us to carry out our mission. Your purchases help us do great things in some of the places of greatest need all around the world. Each sip of DISTRICT coffee you take truly has a global impact.

Recognizing Some of Our Key Partners

Long Miles Coffee Project

The LMCP is a family endeavor to grow and product micro-lots of coffee in Burundi, East Africa. This partnership is responsible for our popular Burundian coffee option. Founded by Ben and Kristy Carlson, Long Miles Coffee Project connects coffee-farming families with international roasters who, like DISTRICT, believe in the importance of traceability and sustainability. LMCP facilitates direct, meaningful relationships between growers and roasters by producing great coffee and bringing awareness to the farmers. Working with over 1,400 famers in 26 collines (coffee hills), Long Miles Coffee Project is a crucial partner that has been instrumental in helping us complete work towards the eradication of economic, physical, and spiritual poverty in Burundi.

The relationship between DISTRICT and LMCP runs very deep. We’ve sent team members to visit the organization in Burundi and to tour the Bukeye wash station. During the visit, our team was heartbroken to see the poverty and despair throughout one of this district inside the poorest nation in Africa. This has only served to spur us onward in our mission. We are motivated to bring hope to these farmers and their families by providing premium wages, developing farming skills, and staying involved in this community’s development.

What does this partnership mean for you? Burundi is home to some of the world’s finest hand-picked, hand-sorted coffee available. Lovingly dried, bagged, and shipped, the coffee from Burundi’s Bukeye and Heza districts have become a staple in our own business. We hope that you’ll join the movement by trying some of these premium African coffees for yourself.

Amahoro Project

Amahoro is dedicated to uplifting Burundian women by creating a safe, clean, efficient, and productive environment to learn crafts that can support their families. Dating back to 2004, the organization works with women to source local fabrics, create unique designs, and sew soft good products that can directly benefit the women responsible for their creation.

In the summer of 2014, DISTRICT personnel visited the Amahoro project to see its impact first-hand. What we found were women being lifted out of poverty, abuse, disease, and hopelessness. From time to time we will proudly be presenting some of these soft goods locally. When these goods are available, you can rest assured that your purchase has a direct and substantial impact on the very woman responsible for creating the item(s) you buy.

Cries of a Child: The Cries of a Child mission is dedicated to the transformation of healthcare for the women and children of Burundi. The vision is to operate under a holistic approach toward restoration and empowerment for the entire community. This is done by establishing and maintaining family-based children’s homes for orphaned and abandoned children, community meeting room, a medical clinic, and a trade school. Further, all this is done through the love of God.

DISTRICT and Cries of a Child have teamed up to invest back into the people at the source of our fourth wave Burundian coffee. In fact, Cries of a Child has already established a children’s home and women’s clinic roughly half a mile from the Bukeye washing station our team has been to visit. These efforts are making a tremendous impact on the lives of the people in this district and we are grateful to be a part of it.

How Can You Get Involved?

Like we mentioned above, our customers enable us to participate in these movements. Without people just like you we would not be able to support and stand alongside these organizations. We would urge you to never take for granted the work that goes into a single cup of coffee. From where will your next sip be sourced? Where will the money go that you pay for it? When you choose DISTRICT, each sip makes a tangible difference in the fight to eradicate economic, physical, and spiritual poverty across the globe.