It all started with coffee. Co–founder Ed Apffel‘s grandfather sold green coffee beans in San Francisco back in 1912, building a thriving coffee roasting business in Los Angeles, still owned and operated by Ed‘s family to this very day.
Ed grew up playing among the coffee sacks, inhaling the scent of fresh beans. It was only natural that he entered the coffee industry straight out of college, first in his family‘s business and then with international companies.
In 1992, Ed was working with an organization caring for children of coffee farmers who suffered from terminal cancer.
He carried that passion in his heart and in 2015, he and his wife, Pam, decided to make a major life change. They closed down their management consulting business and started TerraMica to serve impoverished coffee farming families.
Believing that God had provided them an opportunity to honor Him by serving the poor, Ed and Pam worked tirelessly on a strategy to alleviate the devastating impact of poverty in order to improve physical and mental well–being, stabilize the family unit, cultivate hope, and create a better future. Ed and Pam have brought decades worth of business expertise to solving the poverty problem through charitable service work.
A key tenet of TerraMica is to provide the tools for people to become self–sufficient and better themselves for generations to come.
TerraMica‘s focus was initially on providing latrines and water storage and filtration tanks in Honduras, then expanded into a more holistic approach to building a healthy home: cement floors, roofs, solid walls, water and sanitation.
Soon after, Ed and Pam launched the “My Healthy Home“ program in 2019 to address issues that truly impact lives within families and their wider communities: dignity, hope, spiritual renewal, family relationships, and healthy habits. The curriculum is based on the concept of Biblical shalom and is taught by local team members and partners within the same community as our families.
Believing that sustainable change is effected through education, TerraMica focuses on building a training curriculum that is hyperlocalized to the specific needs of each community and culture we work within. We also team up with partner organizations, local authorities, and governments to maximize our impact in order to keep supporting individuals, families, and communities globally for generations to come.
You’ll see our logo across our social media and materials, so we want you to know why it’s a little different than what you see now. Our new logo continues with the concept of the farmer’s hand and his crop, but our new colors are “earthier” representing the farmer and the land better, it incorporates the coffee cherries with the plant, and we like the circular design of the plant because it symbolizes the globe!It all goes back to what our original premise was: to honor God by serving the earth and its people, to make them shine!
We are currently seeking donors and investors to support our further expansion into the Northern Triangle (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras) and Southern Mexico.
