Plenty Bulletin

June 21, 2007
Dear Friends of Plenty,

The headline in the Nashville Tennessean on Saturday May 12, 2007 read, “Nashville fights spike in violence by teens.” The subheading read, “Teen arrests for violent crimes up 115%. The number of arrests for violent crimes by people under 18 soared in Nashville during the first four months of this year…” A local minister was quoted: "When I was growing up neighbors looked out for each other. Now the young are raising the young." A county prosecutor said, "The culture raises them, and the culture is not that gentle right now." I saved the paper to show our Kids To The Country staff. One of the core purposes of Plenty's Kids To The Country program is to give the kids an opportunity to experience a gentle culture. During the staff and counselor orientation for this summer’s KTC program, we talked about how KTC even contributes to world peace, because every time a young kid comes out of the inner city carrying fear, anger, or unhappiness from circumstances beyond their control and gets out in the woods, and rides a horse, and splashes around in the swimming hole, makes new friends and feels the warmth of a counselor’s caring attention, those are transforming experiences that can last a lifetime. There is no activity more critical for world peace than defusing anger and resentment and impulses for revenge. We’re the first to admit that non-violence is a skill that must be practiced and, like gymnastics or the violin, the earlier we start the sooner we get good at it. We love watching how KTC changes the kids and the counselors too. This year the program turns 21. Plenty is 33. These are remarkable numbers that bear witness to the remarkable grassroots support of a few thousand individuals and small foundations, who donate year in and year out, so this work can continue.

Thirty three years ago we started Plenty with the hunch that if you saw a need and actively committed yourself to helping out you, in turn, would find help and resources along the way. Now, what was once hunch, a theory, a hope, a belief, turns out to actually be one of those basic principles like the law of gravity or "you reap what you sow."

We're excited about a new partnership with DreamCatchers, a non-profit charitable organization begun by Plenty volunteer, turned documentary filmmaker, Gary Rhine, and his wife Irene Romero. Shortly before his untimely death in a small plane crash last year, DreamCatchers made a sizable donation to Plenty's Katrina Relief work. Now Irene is continuing DreamCatcher's support with a creative initiative whereby donors "adopt" a Gulf Coast family that needs help getting back into their home. One year and nine months after Katrina hit, more than 60,000 Louisiana residents are still living in FEMA trailers, still waiting for insurance or “Road Home” money or any kind of financial assistance. Thirty-three thousand of these people are in the Greater New Orleans area. Another 25,000 people in Mississippi are still in the trailers. For people who do receive some funding, there is the growing problem of dealing with out-of-state, unscrupulous contractors who too often “take the money and run.” The St. Bernard Parish Long-Term Recovery Committee has asked Plenty to assist homeowners, especially elderly residents of the Parish, in their dealings with contractors.

Some of our friends at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota have asked for Plenty's help in introducing Reservation residents to soy foods. Pine Ridge suffers from off-the-charts incidences of diabetes and heart disease, due in large measure to an unhealthy diet. With a generous donation from another early Plenty volunteer, and founding member of the Farm community, John Coate and a donation of organic soybean seed from the Blue River Organic Seed Company in Iowa, gardeners at Pine Ridge are undertaking "seed trials" to try and find varieties that will do well in that uniquely unforgiving agriculture climate.

From Punta Gorda, Belize, Mark Miller writes: "There are 25 school garden programs in our GATE program (Garden-based Agriculture for Toledo's Environment) right now including the schools in the villages of Pueblo Viejo and Crique Sarco added as a result of a grant from Onaway Trust. As the 2006-2007 school year comes to an end, Plenty Belize is very proud that ten of the primary schools in the GATE Program have held School & Village Fairs in celebration of their graduation from GATE. The four schools funded by PACT (Belize’s Protected Areas Conservation Trust ) for this year (Columbia, Big Falls, San Marcos and San Antonio), along with Midway Government School, have successful school garden programs. These schools will continue their garden programs into the future, without needing our regular weekly support. Congratulations to the schools and communities, and thanks to all the supporters who have helped to make this possible!

Plenty Belize is now acting as a service provider for the European Union-funded Belize Rural Development Program (BRDP). Plenty is administering micro grants of up to BZ$1,000 (US$500) to assist with starting small businesses. Priority is given to single mothers, older children who are raising their siblings, and persons with disabilities. Eight grants have already been approved, and we plan to disburse 40-50 by the end of October."

Plenty recently participated in a "Green" festival in our local county seat, Hohenwald, TN. The festival spread across the parking lot and park surrounding the courthouse, and the mayor gave the welcoming address. There were displays and speakers on topics ranging from renewable energy to urban gardening to forest protection to natural building. I gave a talk about disaster relief from a "green" perspective.

In Plenty’s experiences with disaster relief over three decades we have learned that most natural disasters are usually at least partly man-made. Extreme poverty and systemic exploitation condemn the poor to inadequate housing in vulnerable habitats, dangerous working conditions and toxic environments. The first major disaster that Plenty International responded to was the earthquake that ravaged Guatemala in 1976. The massive quake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, killed 23,000 people and left over a million homeless. The population that suffered the most loss of life and housing was the Indigenous and majority Mayan population. The Mayans were also the poorest people in Guatemala before the earthquake. Equally hard hit were the poor living in shanties on the unstable walls of ravines in Guatemala’s larger towns and cities.

When hurricane Mitch drenched Honduras and Nicaragua with 50 inches of rain late October-early November 1998, 11,000 people lost their lives due to flooding and mud slides. Most of these people lived in the shantytowns clustered in vulnerable low-lying areas around industrial centers and agribusiness plantations, areas made even more vulnerable by years of deforestation.

When the badly constructed levees built to protect New Orleans collapsed in the aftermath of Katrina, it was the poor in the Lower Ninth Ward, unable to escape, who bore the brunt of the flooding.

More and more we are witnessing the consequences of the relentless destruction of the natural barriers that might help to mitigate hurricanes and floods. The consequences were particularly tragic with Katrina where years of out-of-control development along the Gulf Coast have eliminated the barrier islands and wetlands.

Now, too, we are beginning to understand how the overdeveloped countries that contribute the most greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and are the most responsible for global warming are also most able to adapt to climate change, while less wealthy nations who contribute little in the way of greenhouse gases, are the least able to adapt. A “greener” world is a world that is not so divided into the few who have way too much and the multitudes who have disastrously too little.

And clearly, if we as a species are even half serious about becoming more “green” we will abolish war as a means of solving our differences. War is the greatest unnatural disaster, is an insult to creation, and sends a blaring signal across the universe that we couldn’t care less. Since we really do care, we will have to boost our signal for peace.

We thank you so very much for being part of the solution.

Yours truly,
Peter Schweitzer
Executive Director