Back in 1977, a 22-year-old photographer named Mitchell Denburg touched down in the extravagantly baroque Guatemalan city of Antigua and started snapping. Spanish Colonial cathedrals scarred from the 1773 earthquake, sunburned coffee-plantation laborers, come-hither ladies of the night—all caught the vacationing American's wondering eye. A year later, still under Antigua's spell, he came back, setting up a business "taking portraits of locals for six dollars each and photographing events like baptisms and weddings." The local serapes, or wool blankets, captivated Denburg too. Then a daydream suddenly kicked in: Why not start a weaving studio that would improve its workers' standard of living while catapulting a Guatemalan tradition out of the country's artesania shops and into international living rooms? "My immigrant grandparents always did something to give back," explains the entrepreneur, whose altruistic plan also included building and staffing a bilingual school for the artisans' children. "The world needs more positivity."
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