“Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow.” Exodus 23:16

Today was the graduation ceremony for the students in our Agricultural Training Center’s (ATC) 3-week Sustainable Gardening in Haiti training class. These 8 students, who came from very different areas all around Haiti, have achieved a lot during the past 3 weeks. They have learned new skills that will give them all a new life when they return home. They worked very hard to earn their Certificates of Completion, demonstrating that they now know how to start with nothing, but now they can end up with a “festival of harvest”, for generations to come.

In addition to their new knowledge, they each return home with new gardening tools donated by Z23 Super Hoe, many high-quality vegetable seed packets, donated by our partner Hope Seeds, and drip irrigation kits provided by Chapin Living Waters. They will return home with pride in their accomplishments and ready to show others what they know and what they can produce.

These new small-scale farmers play an important role in helping to stabilize Haiti and provide food security, not only for themselves but also for future generations. We are very proud of them and thank their sponsors for knowing how important a step this would be for these students.

A huge thank you to Wilner, Director of the ATC, and his great staff – Giles, Jean Louis, and Sadrac. These guys are helping to change the face of Haiti from one of sorrow to one of joy, pride, and self-sustainability.

We are hoping to hold the next training class in late May if we can get enough students registered and enough donations to help with some scholarships. If you have any students you would like to register or want to donate towards scholarships please contact our office.

Rad Hazelip, Assistant Executive Director