GREEN RIVER — Sami Doak, the owner of Stellar Coffee, went on a mission trip to Belize on San Pedro Island with other women business owners as part of an entrepreneur trip with Wyoming Women’s Business Center and the Professional Women & Agent’s Community to help women learn how to run their businesses smoother and more efficiently.
Doak said Stellar Coffee has always tried to give back as much as they can to the community by holding fundraisers or collaborating with other local businesses. It is something Doak and her husband hold tightly as Stellar Coffee is the legacy of a child gone too soon. The community had their backs during the difficult time and the Doak family has always been grateful.
One of our biggest things, my husband and I, is giving back to the community. We’ve always done that, even before Stellar Coffee.
Advertisement - Story continues below...Sami Doak
“One of our biggest things, my husband and I, is giving back to the community,” she said. “We’ve always done that, even before Stellar Coffee.”
Doak was motivated to go farther with her efforts and decided to join the Wyoming Women’s Business Center in their mission trip to Belize. The trip was set up by Casey Kuckert and Expedition Global assisted with the logistics of the women going with Kuckert.
Doak went to Belize to teach local business owners a few techniques and came back having learned from them while supporting their businesses. Local businesses are highly competitive and the women that were part of the mission trip taught not only how to set goals but how to collaborate. The local women that attended the conference also received scholarships of $250 a piece, a jewelry making kit, and two laptops. The women that were part of this mission trip also brought with them $1,000 worth of food for the community.
Going into the community was the best part and the hardest were the lessons that Doak has taken home with her. Doak said she was humbled and surprised that while the mission was for Wyoming business women to uplift the local business women, they were uplifting them back.
The residents of Belize don’t live the way Americans are accustomed to, with some homes not having running water. Yet the women and families the mission interacted with were happy in their simpler lifestyles. To Doak, it was a humbling experience and she wants to go again to help the locals and continue to support their businesses, next time with her family accompanying her.
“I think everybody could learn from an experience like that,” Doak said.
