Pushing on!

2020 started with a fundraiser at Pimento Bar and Grill in Minneapolis. We had music, dancing, and rum tasting. There was Haitian coffee, chocolate and art for sale. We sold some donated items and had a raffle for bottles of Haitian rum. It was well - attended and we had so much fun!

Thank you, Harry and the folks at Pimento, so very much for allowing us to have a great party where we raised about $2000 for GDAC activities! Thank you Jeff for all your help at the table. Thank you Eberle and Adely and Eric for contributing to the music of the evening. And thanks to all the folks who attended!

In February I was able to squeeze in a quick trip to Haiti. It was an excellent trip. A quick list of accomplishments includes:

· I was able to bring over $1000 worth of medicine for the animals with me to support our GDAC veterinary agents perform ongoing mobile clinics thanks to donors like you.

· Time was short but I was able to attend one mobile clinic with our veterinary agents. We treated 51 animals in one day. We cared for horses, burros, mules, goats, pigs and cattle. These agents are getting so good at what they do!! (In this pic- we are just getting started - I've got my back to the camera)...

· We meet with a group called Eco Café who run a “wet” coffee processing facility in a nearby town called Ranquitte. We will be selling some of our coffee crop to them this year! Maybe you will be drinking it next year!!

· Meetings – meetings – and meetings....with the coffee farmers, with our committee members and with our veterinary agents to continue to develop our vision and goals for the future!

· We toured the nursery which continues to supply fruit trees, coffee, cocoa and nutritional graze plants for our 20 regional gardens and member farmers. We also sponsored a seed distribution in May. Good seed is very important to generating a good crop and is often hard for farmers to obtain. We were just starting new coffee seedlings when I was there in February. Our peanut crop yielded better this year thanks to education our farmers received from MFK (Meals for Kids).

· We built 10 new goat shelters thanks to our donors– and I toured 6 of them. They are well made and solid! To get wood for the shelters, Justin has to buy the trees that are used to make the boards that form the shelter. It's not like he can just go to Menards and order the boards. It is sad that he has to cut down trees to make the shelters but the animals need a place for safety. This shelter already has a couple of "kids" in it....

· We have a farm now for our goat herd! They don’t have to be tied to trees to graze during the days. We have a barn for them at night and fenced in pasture areas for them during the day. They have access to free choice water and we have a protected area where we are growing extra “graze” for them. Our families have met their promise to return one offspring from the goat they have received from us and we are getting babies that re-build our herd.

We never lose sight of our goal to develop sources of income for our farmers through animal husbandry and, now, crops. We are working towards self-sufficiency. We will probably need to continue to subsidize the cost of animal medication for a while. And we need to continue to reach out to farmers and keep that education going because the animals are benefitting!! Is is also time to formalize at least some of our activities into paid jobs. Creation of jobs is a big goal for us! So we will support those subsidies with other revenue streams (our crops) - and, yes, your donations!

So to continue doing our work, here is a wish list of things we need:

- Farmer education! Goats, Coffee and Equines!! Our goat program is going strong. Once the Covid allows, we want to continue our education events for the farmers. We need to reach out into the more remote areas of the community to bring education to the farmers regarding animal husbandry and the benefits of basic health care. The coffee producers must understand the opportunities and challenges presented when selling their coffee as “cherries” instead of dried beans. Each event costs close to $100 as we supply food and water/pop to all who attend, provide small give-away items and education materials for the farmers for the day and transport the staff that facilitate the event.

- Goats! Even though our herd is developing, we are looking for good genetics to add to it and we will need to buy additional goats for our next give-away. Goats can make such an incredible difference for a family. Good goats continue to cost about $70 apiece.

- Medicine, medicine! We always need medicine and supplies to help care for the working animals of Haiti. They have parasites and wounds and they eat too much plastic! We need a Yedi type cooler to keep vaccines cool in the hot Haitian fields and a solar powered refrigerator to store medications and vaccines. Any donation towards medication or equipment for the animals is most appreciated.

- Transportation! We need a pick up truck for the vet agents so they can pack up their supplies and their help and get to the sites where the work is. This truck will cost us about $35,000 and we have developed a savings account for it. We currently only have about $1000 earmarked for this truck.

- Jobs! We now need to begin making our activities into formal jobs. Our veterinary agents get paid about 5% of what they bring in which is maybe about $5 – 8 per clinic on a good day. The rest goes towards medications. They are very dedicated to their work and need a basic stipend to assure them a more stable income. Also we have the goat herd caretaker, the truck driver, and now the coffee program which will require 3-4 people (during the harvest season) to weigh and purchase coffee from the farmers and manually run a pulper machine to complete the first step of coffee processing that must happen the same day the coffee is picked.

Note that none of these jobs are “management” or office jobs. Our support people (the arrangers) in Haiti continue to volunteer to support this program. Our Haitian Director, Justin, does not ask for a salary. We are not a big non-profit organization….

- Coffee! Our new coffee program requires some supplies such as large tanks to hold pulped coffee, a scale for weighing coffee and polypropylene bags to store the cherries. Our initial investment will probably be about $325.

So we have a lot to do and some ambitious plans. This year has felt very heavy with all the bad news and it is hard to keep going sometimes. But I praise God for the encouragement from our donors and friends who recognize the value of this program the way that we do. We thank you for your help and partnering with us to help get'r done...