farm

Update on the Farm – We Have Beans (and more!)

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Rainy season is over, for which everyone is (temporarily!) thankful. Of course, now it’s hot… TIA! (“This is Africa!” which explains pretty much everything!)

This fall has been exceptionally wet and cold, so Ronald and Fauza weren’t really sure what they’d find at the farm when they got out for a visit.

They were wowed!

Apparently, it wasn’t too cold, because the plants have done amazingly well. What all’s happening?

Beans are ready to harvest – look how beautiful they are!

The matoke (top photo) is coming along great.

The maize is starting to put on cobs.

The new banana saplings have all rooted firmly in the earth.

The cassava is lush and we can get a second harvest from them soon.

With the latrine done, the house finished, and the perimeter fence up, we’ve accomplished SO much in just 3 1/2 short months!

The project is 64% funded, so we’re at a pause except for planting some moringa, tomatoes, onions, eggplant, and other crops. But once we’re at 100% (well, really, as the funding comes in) we’ll be able to take the project to the next level.

What’s still to do?

  • Build the greenhouse
  • Dig the well
  • Buy the grain mill for the maize
  • Construct the coop for chickens and pen for goats
  • Hire a full-time farmer/caretaker

We are so thankful for our volunteer farmer, Pastor Moses, who has overseen everything so far, cleared the land, planted, and tended the crops. He’s also the one who told Ronald about the land, so we are very indebted to him!

With Giving Tuesday and year-end giving coming up, we’d be honored if you’d consider giving to the farm project as part of your end-of-year giving plan. 100% goes to the project, and you’ll have the benefit of seeing the whole thing unfold here and on social media.

We so appreciate your support!

Webele nyo,

Jennings

PS If you want to give now – $25 can help us buy seeds for the next crops! – just click the button!

FABULOUS FARM FUNDS!

PSS DON’T FORGET to get your free ticket to hear my talk on the 11th at the Expat Money Summit, which started on Monday. The Summit started yesterday and there are loads of other great speakers talking about really interesting topics like investing.

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Rainy Season in Uganda

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I’ve spent a lot of time with my Ugandan friends trying to explain the concept of seasons. (I haven’t been that successful!)

In Uganda, there are just rainy and dry seasons – two of each per year. We are coming to the last few weeks (we hope!) of this fall’s rainy season, which has been brutal.

  • At least 24 were killed in flooding in Eastern Uganda in August
  • Thousands were displaced by flooding and landslides in Western Uganda in September

Our own programs have been affected, as you can see from the picture above of Hopeland Primary School in Mbarara. Wells of Hope and the surrounding village in Rwakobo have had even more significant flooding. The work on the farmhouse was delayed significantly by rains.

You may not know it, but Kampala is about 3000 feet above sea level. I’ve only had one trip in 14 where I was hot — often I’m wearing jeans and a sweatshirt! And few windows have glass in them so the damp cold is hard to get away from when it never seems to stop raining.

We’ve had several girls struggle to control their asthma during this time, and about three times the usual number of respiratory illnesses. We’ve even had some cases of dysentery due to all the contaminated water girls have to walk through to get to class.

So… Did you know that you can sign up as a monthly sponsor of our Haven Clinic? It’s true! We are at 40% right now. There’s no minimum to be a sponsor, and it really helps us keep all our teen moms and teen girls healthy by paying Sherry’s salary and restocking the medications we use daily.

SPONSOR THE CLINIC!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS Bonus picture of Sylvia with her new baby boy (no name as of yet) coming home from the hospital to lots of love yesterday!

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Update on the Farm – Put a Roof On It!

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Ronald picked a great day to go out to the farm yesterday – look at the blue sky! It’s been SO wet this rainy season in the Kampala area, and even worse in the west.

This is Hopeland School on Sunday! Not good…

Anyway, back to the FARM.

As you can see, the roof work is underway and nearing completion. The doors and windows have been ordered and are being made. The cement was poured for the floors on a dry day – which was followed by NOT dry days, but it’s finally hardened. And look at the beans growing out front!

The rains will last a few more weeks. (Then we’ll be complaining about it being dry, I’m sure!) Meanwhile, they’re pressing on with the construction as the weather allows, and it’s looking so good!

The farm project is 63% funded, which is amazing. We do need the other 37% to come in in order to be able to get everything done that we have planned, like the greenhouse, the grain mill, and the bore hole. But we’ve made HUGE progress since July 11 when we launched (only 2 1/2 months!!), and we’re so grateful to you for your support.

If you know anyone who might be interested in donating to this sustainable farm project, please pass the email along. 100% goes to the project, so even a small donation really goes a long way. We’d love for you to also consider it for some of your year end giving budget (because holy cow it’s almost October!).

Thanks for believing in us and for helping us create lasting and sustainable lives for teen moms and teen girls in the slum. We never, ever take that for granted and are so amazed at your continuing support. Webele nyo!

Blessings,

Jennings

PS Here’s the link for the farm. When you go to DonorSee, make sure to Follow us, too, so you can keep up with all we’re doing there. We always have 12-15 projects up at a time — many more than I can update you on in a short newsletter!

TAKE ME TO THE FARM!

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What’s Next for the Farm?

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When Ronald found this land, the most noticeable WOW was that it had a home already started. It’s a multi-room brick structure with a garage — the former owner had planned to move there before all the pandemic lockdowns and inflation. That’s a HUGE bonus, as we’d planned to have to build a house for our caretaker from scratch, and while it’s bigger than anything we would have built, we will be sure to maximize all the space.

With the cost of things right now, we won’t be able to finish out the whole building at one time, but our next project is finishing the garage area into a home, with a roof, windows, doors, and floor. We’ll also make another room into a store room for tools and supplies.

Moses, who has been helping us with everything out there, is getting the quote together, and hopefully we’ll be able to start this work next week! And that’s all thanks to YOU and your amazing generosity in funding this project. We’re at 63% now, and would love your help to get us over the finish line soon! There’s a button below.

Meanwhile, look at the cassava in the photo above! Once Moses cleared the weeds and invasive plants out (and sprayed for bugs!), we realized we had a LOT more stuff already growing than we thought. There is a lot of cassava (yuca in Central and South America), and Ronald and Fauza were able to bring some back to Touch the Slum for Mama Santa to cook up. Cassava is great, because you yank it up, harvest the big tubers, then replant it and let it keep going.

We also have mature matoke and mango trees and have planted bananas. Moses is getting us free beans for planting, as well as some small trees from a friend. We’re looking into moringa – we may be able to get some small trees free from the government!

This project already means so much to our team, and now we’ve brought home the first produce… It’s truly amazing, and we can’t thank you enough!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

DONATE: FARM PROJECT!

PS I did a one-hour interview with DonorSee for an upcoming Spotlight feature. I edited the footage I recorded on my phone, so if you’re interested in how Ten Eighteen was born and what we’re up to, you can check it out here!

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You’ll Never Guess What We Forgot In the Farm Budget!

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Weekend before last, Ronald and Betty spent the day at the farm supervising and helping with the fence project. At some point in the late morning, they had a sudden realization of what we forgot in the planning and budgeting… a LATRINE!!!!

Now, as many times as we went over everything, and as careful as we were in thinking of all the small details, somehow this never occurred to us. Honestly, after I got over laughing hysterically, I went back over all our Signal chats, meeting notes, and emails. Nope, not once did either of us ever think about, well, the very basics.

(If I could do emojis on here, there would be literally thousands of laughing ones here!)

Whew, anyway…

Thankfully, you all have been so generous so quickly that we had money in the savings account that we didn’t need right now. So, as you can see from the photo above, we contracted to get a pit latrine made. (And y’all, there is a guy way way down in that hole digging by hand… no thank you!)

We’ve adjusted our goal on DonorSee to reflect this additional expense (and yes, we’ve double checked to make sure we didn’t leave anything else big out, let me tell you!). We are now 63% funded and have a goal of $25,900. It’s only been a month, and we are WAY further along than we expected. All thanks to YOU!

The land is cleared, and we have a lot more cassava than we thought. We’ll be planting beans very soon, thanks to our volunteer farmer Moses, and maybe a few other things to get us started. (We’re thinking tomatoes and eggplant – Moses is checking out the soil conditions for us now.) The bananas are planted, there is matoke growing, and we’ve got papaya and a big mango tree. We couldn’t be more excited and thankful. (And we’re including those latrine builders in things to be thankful for, let me tell you!)

We so appreciate all your encouragement and excitement.

Blessings!

Jennings

PS If you want to help us out with the latrine and the rest of the farm, just click the button!

Pay for the potty!

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Who’s a Farmer Now?!

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One of my earliest memories from childhood is being awakened in the middle of the night to go to the groves and light the oil pots due to an imminent freeze. I didn’t get out of the car or (of course) play with fire, but I remember it clearly. I also remember playing in the packing house as the conveyor belts ran full of beautiful oranges.

My grandfather always had a small vegetable garden at his house and would eat sweet onions like an apple as we walked back to the house. (Which I found horrifying!)

As an older (cough cough) adult, I dream of having a farm one day. I just didn’t know it would be in Uganda!

But we are farmers now!

We officially own the land (with paperwork started), witnessed by the neighboring landowners and the local community leaders. It has been surveyed and marked and we will start building our fence soon.

Honestly, I keep having to pinch myself that we own this land. Land that already has papaya and cassava growing and soon ready to harvest. That already has a partially finished brick building ready to be finished into a home for our caretaker and storage.

I’m still hoping for a farm a bit closer to home one day, but I am absolutely staggered at your response to our need for food, and for another vocational skill to teach our teen moms. It has so far exceeded our wildest expectations that I’m not sure there are words to express our gratitude.

In Luganda, “Tweyanzizza nnyo, tweyanzeege!” (We are so grateful, thank you very much!”)

Blessings,

Jennings

PS While we may be farmers now, we aren’t actually farming yet! Our project to help us bridge the gap between our budget and rising costs is 30% funded on DonorSee – we’d love you to help us so we can fully restock in 2 weeks when classes resume. Click the button – it’s super easy, and 100% goes to the program!

Click here for FOOD!

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Time To Buy Some Farm Land

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The way DonorSee works, we get the money for our projects as it comes in. For large projects that we need to gather all the funding for, I just put the proceeds into a savings account while we wait.

Because the farm project is now about 60% funded, we have the money in the bank for a piece of land! Ronald has been reaching out to all his contacts and visiting plots, and we *may* have found one yesterday! (More on this in a later email as it develops.)

I can’t thank you enough — you’ve been so generous with both your money and your encouragement. It’s definitely a leap of faith, but as we watch prices continue to rise we know it’s the right thing to do.

Obviously, we won’t be buying and improving the land and then gathering in crops the next week. I grew up in a citrus farming family and have done a lot of my own gardening; there’s no rushing nature. We can’t wait to get started!

I can’t believe we’re here — and it’s all thanks to YOU. I’m truly gobsmacked, and so so grateful!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS On DonorSee, we crossed the $30,000 raised mark on June 29. We are now (in 3 1/2 weeks!) close to crossing $50,000! (I can’t even wrap my head around that!) If you’d like to help us get over that amazing milestone, click the button!

Click Here for $50k!

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Ways To Help During the Current Food Crisis

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Stories like this one are popping up in Ugandan media, even as the government is trying to ignore the severity of inflation and supply chain issues. As the President said recently, “Just don’t eat wheat – have matoke instead.” (Sound like any French monarch you recall?)

Now, Karamoja and the northern portions of Uganda that are bordering South Sudan are very dry and arid. The Karamoja tribes are herders, and can travel large distances to find grazing for their cattle. But what is happening there is coming to the rest of the country if it can’t get a handle on a few things:

  • Stopping the export of commodity crops to other countries until the supply chain problems ease
  • Forming some sort of safety net program for the extremely poor who have never recovered from the pandemic lockdowns
  • Stopping the new post-pandemic policy of charging at “free” hospitals

I’m not holding my breath, and we’re not waiting for the government!

Here’s how YOU can help the teen moms and teen girls in our programs – as always, 100% goes to our programs:

  • Become a monthly donor on DonorBox. We will receive the money in 1-3 business days.
  • If you are a big Paypal user, we are part of the Paypal Giving Fund. We will receive the money electronically in up to 45 days.
  • You can give through GreatNonprofits, too. We get a check within once a quarter. (Leave a review while you’re there so we can be a 2022 Top Rated Nonprofit!)
  • We are a verified charity with the National Christian Foundation (NCF). We’ve received one donation through them, and it was a check delivered fairly quickly. They take no fees.

THE BOTTOM LINE – we’ll take money however you want to give it to us! 😀

Thank you for your support!

Webele nyo,

Jennings

PS Make sure to follow us on social media for the latest updates!

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How a Farm Will Let Us Lean Into the Wind

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Every week day, Mama Santa makes lunch for about 75 teens and adults, with another dozen or so children. The lunch above was on the day we went to the market for fresh groceries, so we go the added treat of eggplant, carrots, and avocado. Most days, we just had beans (made with a little onion and tomato) and posho or rice.

Posho is the least expensive carbohydrate available in Uganda — it’s finely ground maize mixed with water and cooked firm, or else mixed with water or milk and a little sugar for a porridge. On its own, it doesn’t taste like much, but it’s filling and good with beans. However, eating nothing but this day in and day out is not a recipe for optimal health!

For an increasing number of our day students, this is the only meal they get each day. There is no food at home.

Even before the daily price increases of the last 6 weeks, we had decided that we needed a self-sufficient solution for the growing food issues. We’ve spent a few months researching and pricing everything from laying hens to concrete posts to acreage, and will be launching our new farm project on DonorSee on Monday.

This is our biggest project to date, and our second “large” project on DonorSee. We have our computer lab thanks to our first, and we are even more excited about the farm.

Not only will we be able to provide vegetables and fruits, protein from eggs and moringa, and grind maize on site, we will be able to take any girls interested in learning about farming and agriculture out to work the land. While many of our teens’ families came from rural villages, our girls haven’t learned the skills that their parents and grandparents knew — and they are excited to learn!

Monday, you’ll get an email with the project link. For now, you can click the button below to get a preview of our project video. We need the project to be 10% funded from our own donors before DonorSee releases it to the wider platform, so we’d love for you to spend some time over the weekend watching the video, looking at our social media, and committing to a donation for Monday. Any amount will help us, and 100% goes to the project!

Farm Project Video Here!

Webele nyo!

Jennings

PS We were a Great Nonprofits Top Rated Nonprofit for 2021, which brought in a good number of donations through their site. We have til October 31st to get 10 new 4 or 5 star reviews to continue our status for 2022. We’d love for you to pop over there and leave us a review – it doesn’t take long! Click the button!

Yes, I’ll leave a 5* review!

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