Used throughout Latin America, campesino is more than just a translation of the word farmer. As The Ecology Center founder Evan Marks learned during his travels in agroecological research, a person who says “soy campesino” is saying less about who they are individually, and more about what they belong to. Both a mark of humility and a badge of honor, campesino is a title for those who live in relationship to the land, day in and day out.

This café exists to honor and uplift those who do the life-giving work of stewarding the land—work that goes largely invisible in our current food system. We’ve built this community gathering space with the goal of supporting a living wage for all our agricultural workers. When you enjoy the nourishment offered here, you nourish the farmers who grew the coffee, tended the orchards, harvested the grain, and cared for the animals.

Thank you for helping us make the difference that ensures an abundant future for these farmers and their families. By modeling a food system in which land stewards receive the respect and compensation their work deserves, we can inspire a new generation of conscious community farmers to keep this lineage alive.