• This past August another Plenty crew traveled from the Farm in Summertown, Tennessee to Pine Ridge. Kathie Hanson, Stephen Skinner, Sal Jefferson, Silas Rohrback, and Lilly Trainor spent one week on the Reservation helping to finish up the hemp house so the family of twelve can move in before the harsh South Dakota winter blows in. They got all the window trim done, most of the baseboards, the floor, some of the closets and they hung a couple of doors. The trip was made easier and more economical thanks to the new (used) Plenty van purchased with a generous donation from the P.E.A.C.E. Awareness Foundation of Colorado. Already the same crew is making plans for a return trip in the spring.

• On behalf of Kids To The Country, we wish to thank the Buffalo Valley Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center in Howenwald, Tennessee for the loan of one of their vans for the use of the KTC summer program and for locating another van for us to purchase. We also want to thank Nadia Bini and Matt Harris of Solar Energy International in Carbondale, Colorado for their inspired, creative work as volunteers with the kids all summer.

• Speaking of Solar Energy International, Mark Colby and Ed Eaton of SEI will be traveling to Belize in October to continue trainings and assessments for the Belize Solar Energy project in the Toledo District. We thank Unity Avenue Foundation for their generous support of this project. Mark Colby will spend three months with our Belize staff meeting with farmers and their families, talking with members and staff of the Toledo Cacao Growers Association, and visiting small farms to begin specific planning for the kinds of solar systems that will benefit people the most, He will also conduct a number of demonstrations including a couple full-fledged installations of solar systems in community buildings in order to train some of the local folks about installation techniques and maintenance of these systems. Ed has been working to develop a very low-cost solar-powered lighting system, much of which can be manufactured using locally available materials.

• Plenty Board member and Soy expert, Chuck Haren, is on a two-month whirlwind tour of Central America providing soy education and processing demonstrations to groups and small soy businesses. In Belize he worked extensively with the School Feeding Program. Next, he is assisting Soynica, a community soy processing business in Managua, Nicaragua. In Guatemala he will help UPAVIM set up a soy “dairy” in an impoverished district of Guatemala City.

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