Dear Plenty Friends,

Plenty was created to answer the question, so what more can we do? We already believed we could do anything we put our hearts and minds and hands to. We weren’t thinking about limits. We were thinking, literally, "Plenty." It’s an attitude as much as a name. In times like these, we want that attitude on the table. It’s an attitude to dispel doubts and fears and make necessary miracles into everyday realities.

Plenty started out in 1974. What have we learned in 30 years? We’ve learned that doing this kind of work is fun and riveting and a privilege to get to do. We’ve learned there are no absolute limits, just as we thought 30 years ago. We’ve learned that people really are alike, around the planet. Everybody wants the same thing, for the babies and kids to be healthy and well-fed and safe, for a chance to live in peace, with access to clean air and water and enough food and shelter to survive, and something to believe in, to get into with your whole heart and soul and to love and be loved. That shouldn’t be too much to ask. That shouldn’t be too much to want. After all, there is more than enough…there is plenty. That’s what we’ve learned.

The work has been represented in dozens of projects carried out by hundreds of volunteers and project partners in over fifteen countries on five continents. Three of the most important factors in Plenty’s endurance are 1.) Plenty is village-based as opposed to "organization based" and by that I mean it’s anchored in the shared lives of people who came together around a commonly held vision about what’s really important. This anchoring has persisted through good times and hard times. 2.) Plenty has been extremely fortunate in finding and attracting skilled and dedicated volunteers and project partners who have more than held up their end of the bargain, overcome daunting obstacles and stretched available resources to the max. 3.) You, Plenty’s donors and supporters, have been so persistently faithful and generous, year after year, that Plenty has been able to build a reservoir of that most valuable of assets in development work—trust. Trust may be the most important ingredient in any project, and this trust gives Plenty a stronger foundation for the next 30 years.

Plenty had its baptism by fire in Guatemala when we met and started working with the Mayans after the ’76 earthquake. Several of Plenty’s projects from those times have survived until now—village water systems, houses and schools we helped to build, the municipal building in Solola, and the soy dairy in Molino Belen. Put together with surplus stainless steel industrial cooking equipment the dairy has benefited the small community by providing jobs and income and a reliable source of high-quality protein. A Mayan soy dairy! Talk about a unique melding of cultures!

So while Plenty is celebrating its 30th anniversary, the Mayan soy dairy is celebrating its 25th. Now we’re launching an integrated soy program we’re calling CAFSI (Central American Food Security Initiative) that proposes to strengthen, improve, expand and link the work of four nonprofit, locally-managed organizations—the Huichol Center in Mexico, SoyNica in Nicaragua, UPAVIM in Guatemala City and the original Mayan Soy Dairy near Solola.

The Spring Bulletin features the CAFSI Project, updates the expanding work in Belize, reviews the Kids To The Country Winter Program and offers reports from around the Plenty Net, that fabric of like-minded partners and friends with whom Plenty is working directly or indirectly. All this and more can be found on the web at plenty.org

Enjoy your spring wherever you are and please keep in touch.

Yours truly,

Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director