Samantha Lurie Carroll ’08 joined Teach for America after graduation, moved to St. Louis and started making an impact. She was assigned to Vashon High School as a special education teacher and stayed with the district for 11 years. It was during Carroll’s participation in a “school swap” that the idea for Show Me Costa Rica Project, an international travel program, was imagined.
Carroll and her students visited one of the most affluent high schools in St. Louis. During their visit, her students noticed a difference between offerings at this high school versus their own. They were especially intrigued by a flier advertising an international trip. The students told her that traveling abroad was a dream they had. “And I told them about my first international trip to Senegal, Africa, when I was a student at Earlham College and the impact it made on me,” she said.
Her students advocated for the same opportunity and participated in several fundraising opportunities such as car washes and working concession stands at local sporting events. They raised $25,000 to take the first group of students from Vashon to travel internationally.
Carroll and 10 students traveled to Costa Rica, and the program was born.
From Costa Rica to the world
Show Me Costa Rica flourished in the community and the program expanded to new travel locations and partnered with various school districts.
“This was all grassroots,” Carroll said, “just from hardcore fundraising and community support.”
But Carroll wanted to find stable funds and to expand the experiences offered to her students. To that end, she partnered with Sylvester Chisom and Boahemaa Adu-Oppong as co-founders of Show Me the World project, which provides under-resourced communities access to educational experiences at home and abroad.
Adu-Oppong, who was a doctoral student studying ecology and ecosystems when she met Carroll, expanded STEM teachings to high school students and developed the STEM curriculum for Show Me The World.
Chisom supported Carroll from very early on, as an entrepreneur whose family members attended Vashon. He donated car wash supplies, and helped Lurie establish Show Me The World and their coffee endeavors.
“Together, we co-founded Show Me The World and are working as an educator, scientist and entrepreneur to elevate the mission and vision defined by the community,” Carroll said.
The coffee brand
During one of Show Me Costa Rica’s trips, Carroll gathered bags of coffee as gifts to supporters from the community back home. Chisom was struck with an idea as Carroll loaded her arms with bags of coffee.
“That was really an aha moment for us,” Carroll said. “If people wanted this coffee so bad, what would it look like if we were to sell the coffee as our fundraising arm? This would allow the proceeds to go back into the country through tourism when we travel.”
And the coffee branch of Show Me The World was born.
Show Me The World sells its brand of coffee to fundraise for international trips, but this program is more than an elaborate fundraiser. It also teaches students entrepreneurship skills and lets them flex their artistic muscles. Students prepare for their Show Me The World international trip all year, with curriculum and workshops to study their destination and to grow the brand. Students sell bags of coffee at the local farmer’s market, pitching their coffee and experiences to shoppers. Students are also involved in designing merchandise that is sold on Show Me The World’s website, funneling their experiences into digital art and clothing design.
Students have been involved from the very beginning in launching the coffee venture and growing the brand. Show Me The World started the coffee line with Costa Rican coffee sold in a brown kraft paper bag. Now, the brand has expanded to a bag designed by Upstart Food Brands, a company that helps start-ups establish brand presence, and single-origin beans from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Honduras, Nicaragua and Peru.
At the beginning of their partnership, Upstart Food Brands came to Missouri to hear students, parents and teachers share their stories and perspective, face-to-face. They designed the new coffee bag with community voices in mind. This elevated branding allowed Show Me The World to grow from supporting 10 to 28 students the first year the coffee brand was launched, spreading the impact and breaking more barriers.
Show me the impact
In 2019, Show Me The World was recognized as an official nonprofit organization. In 2024, the program continues to grow and find support for its mission. Next year the program will be supporting its largest group of students with 100 planning to travel internationally, said Carroll.
Show Me The World has supported more than 150 students to achieve their dream of international travel. And having this program offered makes a huge impact on these students’ relationship with school, learning and their future.
Teacher Lauren Bowers joined Show Me Costa Rica as the co-lead at Vashon High School in 2017. She was intrigued by the program and quickly started noticing that the kids involved with the Show Me program were excellent, dedicated and creative students.
“They were the valedictorians and salutatorians,” she said. “As a teacher, I could tell that these kids were putting in the extra effort.”
Bowers recalled a time that a student in the program stopped coming to school and nobody saw them for weeks. One of the co-leaders of the program called this student every morning to make sure he was at school—to hold him accountable for his own future.
“We saw a huge turnaround in his grades and attendance,” she said. “If this program wasn’t there, that student would have stopped coming to school altogether.”
Show Me The World encourages students to prioritize their schooling, because it is through their education that they have these opportunities. Carroll enjoys every second of watching this shift in priorities happen in real time.
“It’s the best experience and feeling that I could ever have as an educator,” she said.
