Fundraiser raises 5K for medical mission

On Sunday, April 27th The Vashon Island Coffee Roasterie and locally based trade publication, Coffee Talk, hosted a fundraiser Elk BBQ & Bluegrass for 200 guests at The Roasterie. The event raised over $5,000 for The Vashon Island Coffee Foundation and it’s 2015 project to support a medical mission that will provide medical and dental care for the migrant workers and their families in the coffee picking community of Santa Elena farm, Costa Rica.

In attendance was Jim Stewart, SBC founder and a pioneer of the Specialty Coffee industry, who cooked up an elk on his old time rotisserie barbeque. Master Roaster Peter Larsen, who has been roasting beans at The Roasterie for decades, played bluegrass with his band. The event drew guests from all aspects of the specialty coffee business from around the world including India, Ethiopia, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala, to name a few. Pictured above with Eva DeLoach is just one of the coffee farmers in attendance who The Roasterie works with to source green coffee, Juan Diego Monterroso of Culpan Estate coffee in Guatemala. He holds a bag of Santiaguito Roast, the coffee created with the beans he grew and named after the active volcanoes that surround his hillside coffee plantation.