Growers First Blog

Every 3 years, the UPCTIZ Co-op holds elections to bring in new leadership. They placed the 3 year term limit into their by-laws to allow other Co-op members the chance to step up and have an impact in the future of the communities that they serve.

During these past years, Ladislao Solano has served as President with passion, commitment and an energy level that has prompted the Co-op to grow to it's current membership of 400 farming families.

On Wednesday, May 30th 2012 the Co-op held those elections and Wenseslao Jarquin was voted in as the newest UPCTIZ President.

The Growers First Foundation is very excited in continuing it's work along side this new leadership. Wenseslao adds very unique and timely abilities that we feel will elevate the entire region to a greater level of confidence and unity that they have built over the last three years.

Wenseslao, who is of the Mixe people group, is married to a Zapotec women and speaks both the Zapotec and Mixe languages very fluently. This unique skill set has already proven to add an increased level of trust in the communication toward the current and future direction of the Co-op.

Along with Wenseslao becoming the new President, 3 other new members have been added into the cabinet of leaders. 

Patricio Valerio is now the Treasurer.

Inocencio Pedro is acting as an overseer and advisor of the new leadership team.

Saul Valdivia has now taken on the responsibilities of Secretary.

During the week of July 9th through the 15th, the Growers First Foundation team of Dave Day, founder of Growers First, and Dave Klopfenstein, the Director of Growers First, will be heading up a team of Southern California volunteers that will be lending their skills out for a VBS, an educational outreach happening in Nelson Maradiaga'svillageofLas Lagunas.

The team will be organizing the groups of the estimated 250 children that will be attending from Las Lagunas and the surrounding region.

This event is a much anticipated highlight for the children of these communities and they always enjoy the interaction  that occurs when Growers First brings in outside help, especially when younger volunteers show up from theUnited Statesas will be the case with this group.

More pictures and stories to follow as this wonderful event happens......

Growers First uses the Ten Seeds Technique (TST) developed by MAP International to help our communities identify and address their own needs. It is a vital part of our work of empowering our farming communities, and we recently reached out to the Alvarado family to see if they would be interested in taking part.

Zuri and his wife Loida jumped at the opportunity. Loida recently took part in an extensive, week-long training seminar, led by Dr. Ravi Jayakaran of MAP International, to learn how to facilitate and lead the Ten Seeds Technique. She prepared with Gabriela Osorio (a TST pro), practiced by interviewing a coffee farmer from a neighboring community, and received some real-world experience helping facilitate the technique in the nearby village of La Germania.

Loida and Zuri are excited to use this training to further empower their community and neighboring communities, and we're glad to have them on board. Empowering our coffee farmers to take ownership in transforming their communities is at the center of the Growers First model of transformation. The Alvarado's are just one of many families that have stepped up to the task, and we know there will be many more to come.

Rito has experienced dramatic improvements in his family's quality of life over the course of his five years with Growers First, and this winter he was able pay the transformation forward to his neighbors.

Leonzo "Chavelito" Benitez, his wife Maria, and their eleven children live just a stone's throw from Rito in the village of La Cayentana. Until recently, they had been living in a home with a dirt floor. Rito, who was in the same position when we met him five years ago, wanted to help. He coordinated with Growers First and acted as foreman to install a cement floor in Chavelito's home, volunteering his time and labor to help pour the floor and leading a team of Growers First board members and their families as they assisted in the project. Rito's wife, Maria, served the group coffee in her home as they relaxed after the hard work.

In addition to helping Chavelito, Rito had the opportunity to share some of his family's heirloom seeds with a local orphanage, which will allow them to plant yellow, white, and blue varieties of corn. He is also coordinating with Growers First to use his solar drying facility as a nursery to raise organic vegetables for his community.

This past week, Growers First Coffee presented at the Vator Splash event in San Francisco. Out of a pool of almost 100 companies, we were selected, along with 9 others, to present our model of transparency and transformation in front of a crowd of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors. We received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback from judges and attendees who were excited by the Growers First story and our vision for empowering remote, small-plot coffee farmers. This event was an important step in our mission to expand the work of Growers First.

We couldn't have made it to the Vator Splash event without the help of you, our Growers First supporters. Presenters were selected by a round of voting by peers and supporters, followed by a round of ranking by a panel of judges. In the voting round, we surged from the middle of the pack to the top five in a matter of hours. Our sincere thanks go out to all of you who voted online and spread the word by mouth and through email, Facebook and Twitter.