To Whom it may concern, My name is Roxy and I have just finished my first year in college. I grew up in a children's home located in Spokane Washington called Hutton Settlement. Before the age of 7 I lived with my single mom and my 6 other siblings. My mom struggled with a heroin addiction and eventually we were taken from our mom and placed at the children's home when I was 7. Hutton has been an incredible blessing because it has provided a safe home for my siblings and I up until graduation. Not just this but it has allowed opportunities I otherwise wouldn't have such as pursuing a higher education in college by giving support in searching for scholarships and teaching valuable life skills like how to buy my own car and insurance, paying phone bills, and finding my first job. Hutton also has an alumni support system to help with questions we may have such as health insurance, leasing an apartment and other questions we may have about how to navigate being an adult. During the pandemic came an opportunity to be apart of creating something that would change my life forever. I am a Co-Founder of a youth led coffee roasting business called HOPE which is an acronym that stands for Hutton Opportunities for Professional Exploration. Hope has the three main focuses which include, CTE (career and technical education), Global awareness, and sustainable funding. this is now year 4 of HOPE as a business and after finishing my first year in college I knew that coffee is my true passion. Summer 2024 I had an opportunity to visit a microlot coffee farm in El Salvador to learn about Bio-Krop project that Tierra Bendita is involved in which includes coffee and cocoa. Jorge the coffee farmer (whom we purchase green coffee and roast) hosted me for 10 days showing me the importance of maintaining and cultivating coffee crops during the wet season (otherwise known as the winter for El Salvador). I was also involved in the milling process where Iearned what quality control looks like from the producing countries perspective before exporting green coffee samples to various countries in hopes to increase their customer base. As somebody who didn't grow up wealthy nor do I have financial support from my parents, the majority of my money goes to these types of experiences such as travel and education because these are things I will always have and have an incredible impact on my life. Thank you for taking the time to read about my story and I hope to be considered for this scholarship. With Gratitude, Roxy

What is coffee, is it a beverage, a bean, a cherry? For me coffee is an opportunity, as someone born with very little coffee has allowed me to completely reshape my life.My story starts in a small neighborhood barely making ends meet. I grew up with 9 other siblings with negligent and abusive parents with a history of drug abuse. At the age of 7 my siblings and I were taken from our parents and placed by the state at the Hutton settlement children's home.In 2020, the year of the pandemic, while many took this as a hardship, I saw this as an opportunity to grow and better myself and. The pandemic provided additional downtime and I soon developed a love and passion for running. I also co-founded a specialty coffee roasting business called Hope. Hope is an acronym that stands for hutton opportunities for professional exploration. Hope has 3 main focuses, CTE, global awareness, and sustainable funding. The first 6 months we spent crafting a business plan, renovating the roasting facility, and developing a specialty product that could be released to the public. After graduating high school and attending WWU, I found that coffee is my passion. What traveling has and will continue to provide me with is the opportunity to explore coffee growing regions, understand the culture, and language as well as introduce perspectives that are very different from my own. Coffee is all over the world and is viewed in so many ways, a producer of coffee may view it as a plant or a cherry, but somebody in Italy may be more focused on the art of espresso. One of the things I find so interesting about coffee is that it can be found all over the world and has a very deep history, it has contributed to revolutions, it it the foundation for coffee shops where ideas are shared and innovations are created, and it has the ability to connect people from all over the world. My fascination with coffee has contributed to my curiosity and eagerness to travel. I want to experience coffee from all different perspectives and find ways for more sustainable practices in producing coffee as well as honoring the farmer and coming up with ways to promote fair trade specialty coffee. Summer of 2023 I had the privilege of being able to travel to Costa Rica and visit various coffee farms. Looking at the vastness of the farms and the slopes and landscapes and hearing about many of the risks involved with picking coffee really put into perspective the life of a coffee picker. I have personally grown from this experience as a coffee roaster by truly honoring the coffee we roast and in my daily life no matter what job I have it's important that I do it well. This summer I will be studying abroad in Cusco Peru and learning the culture and language. I am a true believer of first seeking to understand others before being understood.

What is the universe? Everything, right? In a very simple answer yes the universe could be defined as everything. Depending on who you ask their definition might vary slightly but nobody's answer is wrong, it’s all based on that person’s experience. So why would such a simple question and a pretty straight forward answer, have a variety of different answers? Perspective plays a large role in the way people view and interact with the universe causing what should be a simple straight forward answer into something very complex. Perspective also influences the values we may hold and the types of things we pursue in our curiosity about the universe. Whether you are a parent waking up at 6:00am, a college student studying for finals, or a revolutionary leader trying to take over the world, coffee is often used in the process. Coffee was first discovered around the 1500s in Ethiopia and is a major building block in coffee growing regions as well as consumers and is the most consumed beverage in the world behind water. Coffee has the potential to encourage innovative thinkers, start revolutions and provide a space for spiritual awakenings. I believe that to better understand the world we must seek to understand ourselves first, so what if there was a cafe curated specifically for people seeking introspection, and innovation to better understand themselves, the universe, and discuss creative new ideas to improve the world. I come from an impoverished family with a history of drug abuse and violence. I went back and forth between my parents, aunts and uncles and other members of our community and for a short period we stayed at a homeless shelter. By the time I reached the age of 7 I was taken away from my parents by the state and placed at the Hutton Settlement children's home located in Spokane Washington. This group home is very unique to many other children's homes and operates under the model of circle of security which is attachment based over a compliance based facility. Over the course of my years living at Hutton I cycled through many incoming houseparent figures and various staff on campus as well as children which made me adaptable. When businesses and schools shut down due to the pandemic this provided an opportunity to create something innovative. The initial idea was to create a cafe and sell drinks to the public, but with the ideas of others and the funding from a grant I was apart of the creation of a specialty coffee roasting business called Hope Neighborhood Roasters. HOPE is an acronym that stands for hutton opportunities for professional education. Hope is primarily focused on career and technical education, youth empowerment, cultural education as well as community engagement. I had the opportunity, the resources, and the time that the lockdown gave us, to build a coffee roastery up from the ground, starting by renovating the roast house and creating a business plan. Once receiving the grant for the roaster I committed the first 6 months not getting paid and creating a quality product we could sell, with the help of Steve Diedrich the founder of Diedrich Roasters. We now operate a subscription service at a fairly local level and sell coffee at local farmers markets and christmas markets seasonally. After graduating and now in my first year of college I have discovered that this is my passion and it is something we want to continue to pursue and grow. Some of the pursuits Hope has achieved is changing our subscription service from a complicated website and shift to an ecommerce system through shopify. This not only has allowed a more user friendly approach, but it also makes it easier on our part. Another element of Hope that has improved and increased public eye is our exposure in various markets such as winter and farmers markets. One of our primary focuses has been on cultural education and some of the ways we have implemented that into the Hope experience is our direct farmer relation with a family in El Salvador. Summer of 2022 we had the privilege of hosting Claudia and her son Ben, the two members of the family of the farm in El Salvador, we taught them how to roast the coffee beans from their farm and in exchange they taught us some of their culture such as the different crops they grow, food they eat, and storytelling about life in El Salvador. In 2023 we visited various coffee plantations in Costa Rica and immersed yourself in Costa Rican coffee culture. Some concepts and Ideas that are future goals for Hope Roasters, is to expand into a cafe setting curated specifically for innovative and inquisitive minds such as individuals on college campuses. Hope Roasters would supply these cafes with high quality specialty coffee and continue to serve as a youth lead entrepreneurship that empower youth to develop CTE, cultural education and community engagement. The value in having Hope cafes is not only will it allow for Hope to be upholding its values in specialty coffee and control in the way that is prepared and presented to the public. But it also creates more opportunities for hutton youth and continues to empower them to seek inward and become their true self by providing them with a skillset that helps them learn what they are good at and find their true passion. So while Hope roasters is focused on empowering youth that may not have as much, Hope cafes will be focused on providing a space for college students to think progressively, in creating something of real value to them.There are an endless amount of intricacies about our universe we have not yet discovered and better understanding the types of people who yield potential for change will be the next big step.