Hughes, who worked in advertising and marketing with J. Walter Thompson in New York City, moved to Homer in 1995 with her husband, Clancy. On a trip to Mexico, they drank some rich-flavored Mexican coffee and were impressed with the taste. But what struck them most were the impoverished living conditions of the coffee bean pickers.

That got Hughes thinking about what she could do to help the workers. In 2002, while attending a specialty coffee association meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Hughes said she was overwhelmed that nobody was paying any attention to the indigenous growers who were in attendance.

She also made the acquaintance of Olga Ayau, who was affiliated with a government assistance program for the coffee industry in Guatemala, a program that favors coffee estate owners, Hughes said.

Ayau invited Hughes to join her on a trip into the highlands of Guatemala to meet the indigenous growers of the Chiquimula region, people who still speak in a dialect of the Mayan language, she said.

“The indigenous farmers live in the rain forest, and their coffee trees are sheltered by the bigger canopy of the rain forest,” she said.

Hughes returned with samples of their coffee and a dream of working with the indigenous growers to improve their lives by helping to get a better price for their beans.

While in Colorado caring for her elderly mother, Hughes started the Earth Friendly Coffee Co. She began hawking Earth Friendly coffee beans to churches, college alumni associations, sports and other nonprofit groups at a wholesale price. They, in turn, had the option of selling it at a retail price to earn funds for their own organizations. A number of churches in particular were so impressed by the plight of the Chiquimula growers that they bought and sold the coffee at about same price, Hughes said.

“Most churches use it as a social justice initiative,” said Hughes, who lists all the fund-raising organizations that sell her coffee on her Web site, www.earthfriendlycoffee.com, and encourages Web browsers to buy either directly from her or any of these groups.

At present, the Chiquimula beans are roasted in Guatemala City, “and I can have them here within three to four days of it being roasted,” said Hughes, who ships beans via Alaska Airlines.

Her growing customer base includes coffee drinkers from New York to California, and all up and down the Railbelt of Alaska.

By October, the growers of the Chiquimula region will be roasting their beans in their own roaster, giving them the potential for greater profits.

Despite a 95 percent increase in sales last year, Hughes said her company remains relatively small, and that she had yet to take a paycheck from it, “but I believe I'm selling enough coffee to make a difference in these people's lives,” she said.