There's a question we get from time to time, usually from someone who's noticed the small mention on our menu or heard it from a regular. What's the charity thing about? It's a fair question, and it deserves a straight answer — not a marketing pitch.

Here's why we donate to charity at Trader & Co., and what it actually connects to.

It Starts With the Coffee

The coffee we serve here is roasted on-site by Six8 Coffee Roasters — our sister business, founded in 2013 by Daniel and Toni Neuhaus. Before Six8 existed, Daniel and Toni spent years as volunteer missionaries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Europe. They saw poverty up close. They saw children being exploited. And when they came home, they wanted to build something that kept doing something about it.

Six8 was that something. The name comes from Micah 6:8 — Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly. The roastery was built around that verse, not as a slogan, but as the actual reason it exists. One dollar from every kilogram of Six8 coffee sold goes directly to partners working to rescue children from exploitation.

When you order a coffee at Trader & Co., you're drinking Six8 coffee. That connection is real.

Why Tie It to a Cafe?

It's a reasonable thing to wonder. Why run a cafe in Yass if the goal is to fund anti-trafficking work in other parts of the world?

The honest answer is that it works. A cafe creates a steady, repeatable reason for people to spend money on something they already want — a good flat white, a decent breakfast, somewhere to sit on a Wednesday morning. That money, across hundreds of transactions a week, adds up. It funds the mission in a way that's sustainable without depending on donations or goodwill alone.

We're not a charity cafe with okay coffee. We're a cafe that takes the food and coffee seriously, and channels part of what we earn into work that matters.

What Happens When You Buy Here

You don't need to know any of this to enjoy a meal or a coffee at Trader & Co. Most people don't think about it when they order a bacon and egg roll or sit down with a latte on a Sunday morning. That's fine — that's how it should work.

But if you're the kind of person who wants to know where your money goes, here's what's true: the coffee in your cup was roasted by a business that was specifically built to fund rescue work for children. A portion of what Six8 earns — including from what we serve here — goes to that work.

You're not donating. You're just buying a coffee. But the coffee is connected to something, and we think that's worth being honest about.

We Don't Make a Big Deal of It In-Cafe

You won't find us talking about the mission every time someone orders. We don't put it on a banner or use it to guilt people into spending more. That's not the point, and frankly it would get old fast.

We're a local cafe. We want to be the kind of place Yass families come back to, where highway travellers stop because someone told them it was worth it, where the food is honest and the coffee is good and the staff know your name after a few visits. The charity connection is part of who we are — it's not a sales tactic.

If you want to know more about Six8 and the work behind it, you can head to six8coffee.com. If you just want a good breakfast, we've got that too.

A Note on the Coffee Itself

We use two Six8 blends in the cafe. Bohemian goes into all our milk-based coffees — lattes, flat whites, cappuccinos, and the rest. It's smooth and sweet, and it works. Ethiopian single origin is what we use for black coffees and batch brew — smooth and fruity with a big juicy mouthfeel, and genuinely good on its own.

Both are roasted here on-site. Both are available as retail bags if you want to take some home. And both are part of the same thing — a roastery that exists because two people decided that good coffee could do more than just taste good.

If you want to try the coffee that sits behind all of this, come in and have a cup. Or check out the blends available to order online at six8coffee.com.

We're at 92 Meehan Street, Yass. Come say hello — the coffee's on.