Coffee & Compassion in Tandem in 2025

For the past few Giving Tuesdays—the day following our busiest sale of the year on Black Friday/Cyber Monday—we have given 10% of our café and online sales to The Mercy Kids Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing hope, healing, and dignity to children experiencing disability in Nicaragua.

As 2025 came to a close, we realized that not only did we have giving news to share about The Mercy Kids, we had other exciting ways in which Carabello Coffee was able to give in 2025 that we wanted to share with you!

The Mercy Kids Foundation

As an organization, The Mercy Kids raised just over $10,000 on Giving Tuesday (December 2, 2025). We were able to give $500 based on total sales of nearly $5000 in both the cafe and online that day—which is about 5% of The Mercy Kids' total amount raised.

The Mercy Kids are still doing amazing work in Nicaragua, despite ongoing operating challenges due to the political climate there. The kids they serve live up in the mountains in the coffee-growing regions and are our primary focal point for giving in Nicaragua. We really believe in the work The Mercy Kids is doing and love knowing we are helping improve daily life for these kids and their families.

 

Giving to Carabello Employees

This year, as our executive team (Justin and Emily Carabello and Emily Shinkle, our Chief Operating Officer) thought about end of year giving, they wanted to do some things that were a little bit different. Our chief trio learned about a government program for student loan repayment under section IRC-127 of the IRS code. This provision allows employers to pay directly to their employees’ student loans up to a max of $5250 per person per year through December 31, 2025. So the chiefs decided that it would be great to take some of the money the company was planning to give in 2025 and invest into Carabello employees who have student loans. As a company, we were able to directly pay $8000 to all eligible employees’ student loans...which is a pretty

"We were really delighted to be able to give back to the people that make our company possible on a daily basis." —Justin Carabello

 

Additionally, all employees received a cash bonus in their Christmas cards this year, which is not something Carabello as a company is able to do every year. It was so fun to see the surprise on everyone's faces (including my own) when we opened our cards at the Christmas party!

 

Abana Estate Primary School Project

One of our Direct Relationship producer partnerships is with Abana Estate in Ethiopia. Michael Omran is the son of the founders of Abana and the main trader/importer of his family's coffee into the States. In a conversation that Justin had with Michael towards the end of 2025, he learned that Abana was starting a campaign to build a school across the street from the farm for grades 1-4 and was looking to raise $7000 towards the project.

The school would allow kids whose parents work on the farm to be receive an education while their parents are working. There is already a preschool/kindergarten school across from Abana Estate, but this project would add to it. For many families, this addition would reduce their commute time on foot to school by 1 hour per day!

 At the point of Justin and Michael's conversation, Abana had already raised $1000 towards their goal. Carabello Coffee was able to write a check for the $6000 that remained!! This felt really great to our chief trio and to the rest of the Carabello staff when it was announced at our Christmas Party! Yet another reason to celebrate coffee & compassion in tandem! 

Continued Ongoing Giving

Throughout 2025, we continued to support Compassion International (Nicaragua and Rwanda) and Kenya Kids Can (in the Rift Valley in Kenya) on a monthly and annual basis. We sponsor children in both of these programs. 

Despite all the challenges with the coffee supply chain and coffee price increases in 2025, it was a really good year for us (much to our surprise!) This was a direct result of the strength of our producer relationships and wholesale relationships, which all held together (many in the coffee business cannot say this coming out of 2025), as well as the consistency of our online and cafe customers. In what could have been a really bad year for us, we are so thankful that we were not only able to have a year in which we came out ahead on Carabello Coffee operating costs, but that we had enough beyond that to fuel generosity and compassion to others!