Farming Project

Greetings Family and Friends,  Here is a more detailed look at the upcoming community farm project.

A large and rampant problem, or rather need, we have seen here in Kenya over the last year has to do with the high cost of children's school fees in comparison to families' monthly income.  Most schools here in Kenya cost about an average of 500-600 USD per year.  This may not sound like much, but when the average monthly income of many families ranges between $30-150 per month it begins to be difficult.  Coming up with funding is especially challenging for many of the families coming from a polygamous culture with multiple wives and about 10-20 children per family.  It is also challenging for widowed women and orphans.  When a child is short on school fees many times, if not all the time, they are sent home to look for the lacking fees, until they can come up with something to bring back to the school.  This causes students who are already struggling to become even further behind academically, and their morale is lowered.  It is hard to be motivated to succeed in school when you do not know whether you will ever be allowed to attend or have the chance to finish due to school fees.

Our goal is to provide income for families in need, with part of that income being specifically earmarked for school fees for these families children.

Our vision is to start a small farm.  From running all the numbers and figures on paper, it seems to be viable and sustainable project.  At this point, it looks like the best vegetable for us to farm is French beans.  We have started by renting two acres of land for the next year.  This first year will start as a test run to see how sustainable the farm can be, and whether it can generate enough funds to be considered viable and support 5-10 families and students.  If it is a success, we would like to consider buying 2-5 acres and making a community organization to run and upkeep the farm, thus continuing to support the community long after our time here is over.

We hope to hire families who are out of work or only work part time.  This farm would be an opportunity for those women to have at least a part time job paying a fair wage.  Our hope is to pay a fair and slightly higher wage than they may get else where but to only payout half of the earnings per week to the working individual, while the other half goes directly to their children's school fees.  In this way we can help guarantee that these children are not sent home from school due to lacking school fees.

Any profits that are generated beyond the costs incurred: ie. rental fees, seeds, water, labor, ect... will be put back into the community in some way.  This will either take the shape of partial scholarships for students (which we talk about in another blog post), other community projects (such as home farms, milking goats/cows, chickens, ect.), or small business loans.  Our hope is that after initial start up cost, the project will maintain itself and generate income for similar projects in the future without any reoccurring support from outside.

We welcome any ideas and support any of you may have in regards to the project as we are both new to this, and without any business degrees or training, we are in new territory.  However, we have seen a very real need that we believe we may be able to help with and God has given us a vision of how we can help support the local community.  We pray that this will be a venue to make His glory known even from the sowing of some simple seeds.  Feel free to contact us if you have any questions, comments or ideas!  Also be in prayer for us as we start to break ground this week! To God be the glory!

Chasevarndt@gmail.com