PLENTY BELIZE

These boys are trading the plastic bottles they've collected for tomato plants.

Plenty Belize's Family Garden pilot project is on stream, funded by the Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation. This project is funding twenty families throughout the Toledo District to grow home gardens. Over the past five months each of the families have received tools and seeds valued at over $300. This project will be carried out over one year, aiming to end December 31, 2008. Each family is also receiving regular visits from one of Plenty Belize's two Agriculture Extension Officers. These families have shown great interest in the program and will be harvesting their first crop in less than a month's time!

As part of its campaign to help keep Punta Gorda Town clean, Plenty Belize began to give out vegetable seedlings that we grow in our shade cloth nursery in exchange for plastic bottles The project has been a big success so far. Since the inception we have collected well over 5,000 plastic bottles and given out over 1,000 plants! Our success is in large part due to the dedicated work of Omar Requena, one of our Board Members and the nursery work of Omar Requena, one of our Board Members and the nursery manager. The bottles that are collected through this project are reused as containers for the seedlings. Furthermore, on Earth Day Plenty Belize joined the community effort to increase environmental awareness by setting up an informational display and giving out vegetable seedlings. Abib Palma (Agriculture Extensionist) and Mike McGuire (Peace Corps Volunteer) gave away over 300 plants in less then 3 hours. Plenty Belize expects the plants-for-bottles project to continue growing in the future. Almost everyday people are coming by to pick up plants. With the looming food crisis, the importance of our work becomes more apparent to all.

The Cal family garden in the village of Corazon.

Plenty Belize, with support from the European Union and the Government of Belize, recently opened the Small Business Resource Center (SBRC) in Punta Gorda Town. The Small Business Resource Center will provide training and support for recipients of grants through the Micro-Grants for Poor Families Program and through the Enterprise Engine for Rural Toledo Program. The SBRC aims to provide efficient and reliable business services for residents of the Toledo District in Southern Belize. These services include business planning, training, and other services geared to the small entrepreneur. Plenty Belize's former Office Manager, Tasha Petillo, was selected from a pool of highly qualified applicants to be the Manager of the SBRC.

The SBRC and Plenty Belize will be working closely with our partners - the Toledo Teachers Credit Union (TTCU), Sustainable Harvest International Belize Program (SHI), and Belize Enterprise for Sustainable Technology (BEST) over the next two years.