Our Mall features over 1,400 well known stores like Macy's, Nordstrom and Land's End and the list is constantly growing.  When you enter one of these stores' websites through our Mall and shop, Fabretto will get a portion of your purchase proceeds, usually anywhere between 2% - 4%.  It costs you nothing extra and you are shopping for a cause!

Shopping the Fabretto Mall is exactly like going to a store or vendor's website directly.  All your regular frequent buyer accounts can be used for points accumulation or use.  For example, if you are a member of Delta Airline's frequent flyer program, making your reservation by entering the Delta website via our mall will allow you to earn or apply travel points just as you would otherwise, but Fabretto gets to share in a small way in your travel adventures!

The Fabretto Mall home page features just a sampling of all the participating stores.  Do a search for your favorite vendors by name or category to see the full gamut of retail options.  Then, make the Fabretto Mall a "favorite" website on your browser.  Use it every time you shop online, and Fabretto will automatically get a contribution.  Think of it as "Easy Shopping for Easy Giving". 

To visit our Fabretto Mall...

For years now, Fabretto has been selling pine needle baskets made by the women's cooperative we helped found in San Jose de Cusmapa.  We are delighted to announce that we have added coffee to our basket of goods coming from this small town in the mountains of Northern Nicaragua.

In the last few years, a few enterprising Cusmapans have started growing "patio coffee" on their small farms that lie at an average altitude of 1,500 meters.   This fairly arid region is particularly well suited to the Caturro variety, which is known for its acidity and body.  One of these growers will be known to anyone who has visited our center in Cusmapa: she is Dońa Nora, who greets and takes care of all our visitors that stay in the Volunteer House, Casa Loyola. 

In the spirit of helping Nora and her fellow growers, many of whom are parents of children in our programs, we have purchased much of their most recent crop and are offering it for sale, as Café Fabrettino, at events and on our website.  Just as with the baskets, we hope that the added income we can provide these families by finding a market for their goods here in the U.S. will help them develop financial self-sufficiency and income security.  There is a long history at Fabretto of assisting our parent and student communities incubate micro-businesses and this latest coffee venture falls squarely within this tradition.   With time, the success of these small entrepreneurs will help to strengthen the economies of Cusmapa and its outlying rural villages.

A very new enterprise, Café Fabrettino is not (yet!) certified as Fair Trade.  However, it generally meets all the standards of organic production as it is shade grown, sun dried, and processed by hand, without the use of pesticides.  This production method gives this coffee a unique and wonderful flavor. But it is strong and there is no decaf option right now - so beware, you might get really jazzed!  

Visiting Nicaragua

Recently, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to be in Nicaragua for the second time this year.  I love going and on this visit, I was able to take time to see some new sights.

The best by far was Lago Apoyo, a lake that sits in an extinct volcano.  As I came over the crater's rim, I caught breathtaking views of the lake below through the lush jungle foliage.  I drove down the steep road, ending at a wonderful little hotel, Norome, that hugs the shore and where anyone can go to have lunch and take a swim. 

As I looked out over the lake (with an excellent mojito in hand!) I was in awe knowing that I was inside a volcano, by the absolute tranquility of the place, and the fact that around the whole lake, which must measure a couple of miles across, I could only see one house on the farthest shore.  This panorama and the feeling it engendered represents for me one of the best aspects of Nicaragua: beautiful, untapped potential that if well managed can return so much good for the country with new jobs and sound development.

On the other hand, I also visited a rural, isolated community that currently receives no humanitarian assistance - either from Fabretto or any other organization.  The experience was a stark reminder of life's daily reality for so many Nicaraguans.  As we drove up to an abandoned building, a group of children came to greet us grinning with excitement. Visitors!  Surely a rare occurrence. 

They asked us what we were doing there and when we answered that we might come and turn the building into a school one day, they immediately wanted to know what color it would be.  I laughed as they excitedly offered their opinions, finally deciding that green and blue would be their colors of choice.  But it also made me sad, because it was such a simple question, yet so hard to answer.  I don't know that we'll be able anytime soon to go to their village and build them a blue and green school.  However, what affected me most was that here I had irrevocable proof of the impact that our efforts have in the communities we do serve.

Unlike kids in our programs, these children were dirty, muddy, with torn clothes, no shoes, skinny little bodies, and perhaps most disturbing, most had brown, rotting teeth - even the littlest one, no more than 3 years old, who was wearing nothing but an old pair of underwear and a t-shirt.  To say that I wanted to pick them all up, take them to the nearest feeding center, clothing store, and dentist - in that order - would be an understatement.  It was one of the more difficult moments of my trip.  Yet the children were so sweet and delighted with our visit, that I left smiling as they all stood on a crumbling wall waving and shouting goodbye.

While much in Nicaragua is better today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, there is still so much to do.  The current crisis that is crippling the country is one of energy.  Planned black-outs, lasting as long as 6 to 7 hours a day in communities throughout the country, are hampering business, tourism, daily life, and, of course, schools. 

At our center outside Managua, the lack of electricity from 7:00AM to 4:30PM means that our computer lab is mostly lying dormant.  As a result, for a month now, the kids have only had computer theory classes.  Indeed, the same is true to some degree at all our centers and it means that we will probably need to buy generators to power the labs so that our students can follow their planned curriculum. 

This is something of a burden as the purchase of generators is not in this year's budget. However, the bigger issue this crisis highlights is that it will be a long, long time before Nicaragua is able to properly care for all of its citizens, especially its youngest and most vulnerable.  With over 800,000 rural children not attending primary school due to lack of classrooms and infrastructure, a figure released last week by the Ministry of Education and which is likely conservative, it will also be a long, long time before Fabretto's job is done.

So, we'll keep plugging away, either with or without electricity, to make sure our kids are educated, clothed, fed, and getting basic medical attention.  And hopefully in return, our current students will someday contribute to the economic development of their country in a tangible and substantial way.  The positive in it for me, perhaps selfishly, is that I will continue to have reasons to make trips to Nicaragua, and have new chances to explore this amazing country.  Next time, I hope to see Leon!

Thank you for continuing to support all our efforts.  And if you happen to have an extra generator lying around - let me know!  Hey, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't ask.

Yours in Fabretto -

Alexandra S. Garcia