With funding graciously donated for clean water projects in Belize by the Central Midwest Women and Religion Committee of the First Unitarian Church in Indiana, Plenty has been installing or upgrading water systems at four rural schools participating in the Toledo District’s School Feeding Program. Three systems have now been completed. The final system is in Barranco, one of the District’s most remote villages, and one of very few indigenous Garifuna Villages in all of Belize.

The school has 50 students, and is currently feeding all of their students once a week. They have plans to expand the feeding program to 5 days per week over the next few years. Kitchen labor is provided by a few volunteer women from the village, and hauling water for cleaning, cooking, and washing dishes is one of the more physically difficult tasks that they must do to provide lunch for the children. The school’s existing small rainwater catchment system for drinking water did not provide adequate water throughout the year, and is at a low elevation, making piped water impossible. When this system goes dry, water must be pumped by hand and hauled a few hundred yards to the school. With the support of the Barranco village school principal, the PTA Chairman, the Village Chairman, and village residents, Plenty volunteer Mark Miller designed a more adequate rainwater catchment system. This includes an outdoor pavilion/education area with a roof to collect rainwater, an elevated concrete tank stand for two 1500-liter tanks, connections to pipe water into the kitchen, and drainage.