JUPITER, Fla. — A Jupiter coffee shop is helping a metal artist in Haiti.
I Need Coffee is a coffee shop and a hidden little gem. When Dan Moretz and his wife Catherine bought the place a few years back, they went looking for a coffee that would intrigue the taste buds.
"We had a conversation together and we said, 'Hey, Jamaican blue coffee is some of the best coffee in the world. I wonder where else nearby would have coffee similar to that with similar mountain ranges and things.' And that's how we got interested in Haitian coffee," Dan Moretz said.
A quick Google search and he found "Singing Rooster," a nonprofit supporting Haiti's small coffee producers.
"A large portion of the coffee sales goes back to the Haitian farmers themselves," he said. "Two-thirds of each bag of roasted coffee the organization sells goes back to the farmers, which is a very, very high wage in the coffee industry."
When he read a monthly e-letter about the tough times a metal artist in Haiti was dealing with, Moretz and his wife did something about it.
"I couldn't sit there and read that and not feel a responsibility or maybe a need to help this particular individual," he said. "I mean, it came out to be $420 for the entire year."
WPTV spoke with the artist named Gonzalez through video conferencing from Haiti.
"I don't have a way to explain the generosity because for the moment, it is the biggest thing for us to find someone to help us," he said.
By not having to worry about paying rent for his studio, Gonzalez can now employ several people. He spoke directly to Moretz, a man he had never met.
"When you help me, you help everyone inside my neighborhood. You make the biggest thing for me," Gonzalez said.
Moretz had kind words of his own for Gonzalez.
"Thank you so much. It's my family's pleasure and I hope to meet you one day," he said.
Gonzalez said what Moretz and his wife have done to help him brings hope at a time he needed it the most.