Happy Holidays! I have started this fundraising campaign to ask for your help and support this holiday season. You may already know that I am currently the Director of Program Development for Global Student Embassy, a young non-profit working to address food sovereignty and environmental justice throughout Northern California, Nicaragua, and Ecuador. Every year, for 3 months, I live in Nicaragua to run exchange programs while also supporting the development of school garden projects in our partner community of Chacraseca. Chacraseca is an agricultural community outside of Leon, Nicaragua that has been damaged by industrial agriculture practices that have left the land infertile. As a result, the community faces challenging health and economic problems. GSE’s school garden program in Chacraseca engages the local community in creating sustainable food systems, by starting bio-intensive school farms that produce healthy food for a free breakfast and lunch program while also educating the local community about organic agriculture methods.

The challenge is water. ‘Seca’ from Chacraseca literally means dry; the water table is 400ft underground. While GSE’s program has been extremely successful in Chacraseca, our ability to impact the community would grow exponentially if we could create more sustainable water projects. Last year, I rallied my community and raised $15,000, which funded an irrigation system at Alberto Berrios, our flagship school in Chacraseca. The project was extremely successful and in the past 6 months (since the irrigation installation), over 6,000 pounds of organic produce has been harvested from that garden. To see a video and read more about my experience in Chacraseca, please visit globalstudentembassy.org/waterproject.

In February, I will return to Nicaragua to capacitate the expansion of our program in Chacraseca. One of my goals is to build water systems at two smaller school gardens, which will increase each farm’s food production by 50% (all of which goes to feed local Nicaraguan students). My goal is to raise $10,000 by February 1st and I am asking those in my network to help achieve this goal.

Please join me in supporting the work that I will be doing in Chacraseca, Nicaragua. Any support you can give will make a tremendous difference and no donation amount is to small. You can donate through Empowered.org or make a check out to Global Student Embassy and mail it to me at 4 Ethan Ct. Lafayette, CA 94549. Your donation is tax-deductible and tax ID information will be available on your receipt.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to call me (or set up a time to get together) I would love to share more inspiring stories about our programs! I would also love to be introduced to others in your network that you think may be interested in getting involved or supporting GSE.

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful contribution and for making my work possible!!

Warmly,
Mallory