December 4, 2002

Dear Friends of Plenty,

These are perilous times. Aren’t they all? More than usual we’ve been hearing from you, with questions and comments and kind words of encouragement. Plenty donors are a wonderful group of aware, caring and actively involved individuals. Some of you have been out in the street with signs of peace. Some of you are helping to organize and lobby for sanity and wisdom in the halls (or caves) of power. To often the political power centers seem to be inhabited primarily by the chronically unhinged. You find yourself asking, "What planet are these people living on? What Medieval time warp do they represent?" Finally and inevitably we ask, "What can we do?"

We’re hearing from some of you who are school teachers, and you’re talking to your students from your heart about the confusing world around them and guiding them to look beyond their own lives and families and friends to members of their own generation in other parts of the world—Afghanistan or Iraq or Guatemala or Belize or Indian Reservations in the US. A couple of you live on reservations and are helping folks there directly. Some of you are going out as dentists and nurses with medical teams to work in under-served regions. Others are volunteering to serve meals in homeless shelters. Many are writing letters and making phone calls to express your thoughts and opinions. Whatever, the thing is, you’re out there (and out here). Wherever we are, we’re in this together, and it seems we share a viewpoint, and an understanding about how the world works, and the importance of how we act in the world, the importance of living lightly on the earth, and the importance of paying attention to everyone, and being peaceful and trying to help in whatever ways we can. It is through these creative and generous thoughts and acts that the world continues to breathe, and that we get reminded that we’re far from powerless and, in fact, we are the ones who will decide how all this plays out after all.

We hope we keep hearing from you. We want you to know how many people just within the Plenty family are deeply involved in helping to shape the future in ways that our children and grand children and all future generations might enjoy, and live in peace. Goodness doesn’t always win, but it always wins in the end.

On behalf of all the Traditional Birth Attendants you’ve helped train to deliver babies in Belize, and the kids in the Toledo Schools who are learning how to grow food with your support, and all the kids from Tennessee inner-cities who’ve been able to get out in the country and ride a horse because of you, and our Native American friends at Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations for whom you are a lifeline, and the people of San Bartolo in Guatemala who make soyfoods and our friends at Imani House International who are working hard in Brooklyn and Liberia, and the Carib Peoples of Dominica who are conserving their rainforest with your assistance, and the kids in Kabul who you are helping to feed and our new friends among the Huichol Peoples of Mexico—on behalf of these and all the thousands of people around the world who you have touched with your kindness and given a lift to, and on behalf of all your friends at Plenty, we can’t thank you enough. We love you and appreciate you for who you are. It’s not an exaggeration to say—you are the hope of the world. It’s just the way it works.

So keep on doing what you do and take care of yourselves. We’ll be in touch as well.

Yours truly,

Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director