Hi, I’m David. I live in Oregon and enjoy spending time with my wife, four grown daughters, their husbands, and 11 grandchildren. Since 2007, I’ve been working as the President and CEO of the company I founded, Volunteer Voyages LLC. The Mission of that company is, “Enriching lives through humanitarian service adventures”. The mission doesn’t specify who’s lives get enriched, and I’ll let you speculate on that. Through that organization, I’ve been able to travel to many countries to work with some of the poorest people that live there. I’ve developed strong bonds with them because of our efforts to improve their quality of life. Our company took a (hopefully) brief break during the pandemic and watched sadly as many aspects of their lives became more challenging. We hope to resume a full schedule in the next few months – when international travel is again safe for our volunteers. We’ll keep everyone advised of our schedule through our website, www.volunteer-voyages.com.
As we worked in these countries, I noticed that many of the people we worked with were farmers. Some only had a little land while others had bigger properties, but the majority of them worked very hard to use that land to feed their families and to gain a very modest income. Of course, with such a small income, everything for the family is constantly in short supply. The most important of these, food, education, healthcare, tools, and equipment, frequently had to be rationed.
Since many of these farmers were raising cocoa beans, I decided to learn more about the process. I was fascinated and captivated by the possibilities. Cacao trees need to be tended carefully and the cacao pods need to be harvested with the same care. After that, the processing – fermentation and drying – must be done with precision before the perfect cocoa beans are finally stored safely in bags until they can be shipped to us. That’s a tall order, and we have found that not very many farmers have mastered all these concepts. But for those that are interested, we’ve decided to help. After all, producing higher quality cocoa beans will give the farmers and their families much higher revenue, and it also, ultimately, gives us better chocolate. It’s a Win-Win! So, we provide assistance in the form of teaching, equipment, supplies, and higher purchase prices to the select few farmers that want to take advantage of our offers.
That’s where Henada LLC comes in. I met Enrique – see his bio – when we worked together in Guatemala and soon discovered that he shares the same passion about helping people thrive. In 2021 we teamed up to form Henada LLC to be able to import these high-quality cocoa beans into the USA for you to enjoy. We started with our grower contacts in Guatemala and those of our business associates in Ecuador, and soon hope to add more growers from other countries. You’re going to love our selections.
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