kula project

We are thrilled to tell you that the Kula team will head for Lodwar, Kenya on October 13, 2013 in partnership with SERV International. Lodwar is in northwest part of the country near the border of South Sudan, and the people of this region live in the most extreme environmental conditions.

The incredible people at SERV International run an orphanage called House of Hope. Home to 40 children, the House of Hope offers food, clean water, clothing, shelter, an education, medical care and spiritual development to children who have lost their parents due to extreme living situations in the region.

In addition to caring for 40 children, SERV has been able to employ 15 people at the orphanage, and we will be building home gardens for each one of them. The president of SERV, Joe Garcia, said, “Because of the conditions in Lodwar, people have literally never seen food grow,” and it is our intention to change that.

SERV has a SERV 1 Feed 1 project that specializes in distributing a dehydrated meal in which one 8-ounce serving can fulfill a person for a day, and we can recycle the meal bags and use it to teach that same person to grow food out of it.

In order to ensure success of the gardens after we leave, we will hire our first international employee. This person will be in charge of checking on each garden, helping to solve problems, and measuring the outcomes. Using a netbook and digital camera provided by Kula, they will be able to directly report to us and ask specific questions as they arise.

Our team is beyond excited about working with the amazing guys at SERV International. In a very short time, we have become incredible friends, and we are confident that we have been put together for a big reason. This is the beginning of an incredible partnership that can bring great progress to the people of Lodwar.

We need to raise $19,500.

If you would like to be apart of journey, you can donate HERE. *Be sure to choose SUPPORT A TRIP and enter KULA PROJECT in the comments box to ensure your donation goes to our project.*

If you would like to host a fundraiser for us, please contact Sarah Buchanan at sarah@kulaproject.org.

Today is World Water Day. Kula Project asked 100 third graders if they thought they could carry a jerry can full of water, and all of them said yes. When they attempted to do so, most kids could barely lift it. The reality is 800 million people, many children, spend the majority of their days fetching water in these same jerry cans, but it is usually is so dirty that it makes them sick. Our goal is to help people grow food with less water, so they don’t have to fetch as much. Using methods such a simplified hydroponics, drip irrigation, and sub-irrigated planting, our gardens require about 90% LESS water than the traditional garden or farm. Join us in our efforts by donating to our Jamaica project or simply sharing our purpose with your friends!

Share this post with your friends today, World Water Day, as we not only acknowledge the 800 million people without access to clean water, but try and do something about it!

A few months back, we signed a lease on a seven-acre property just outside of Roswell, Georgia. This land will allow us to use our own farm as a training center, and we can sell all of the produce at local farmer’s markets, so Kula isn’t dependent on donations. In order to do all this, we need a ton of compost, so our compost bins were first on the priority list. Quickly realizing that there is no way for James and I to generate enough foods scraps on our own, I went directly to Chef Ted of Table&Main. He has always wanted to be able to compost the scraps from the restaurant, but there is not a composting service around here. We did some brainstorming and came up with some awesome ideas that would allow Table and Main to give us their food scraps, so we could create enough compost for all of our local gardens. After a little more talking, we realized it shouldn’t end with one restaurant, and the rest of downtown Roswell could eventually get involved, so I began reaching out to other restaurants that were quick to jump on board. Currently, we are holding our program to two restaurants, Table & Main and The Mill Kitchen and Bar, so we don’t take on more than we can handle.

If you want to get involved in the program by helping us pick up compost, email Sarah@kulaproject.org.

On April 7th, the Kula team will head back to Saint Mary, Jamaica. Saint Mary is the poorest parish in the country, and we want to help!

Beyond the resorts, beautiful beaches, and tourist attractions lives Ms. Maumpe. She is a wonderfully kind woman with 9 children, and she is anxious to have a garden in which she can give her children something nutritious to eat. Unfortunately, her “yard” is hot rock and coral, so she is has been unable to grow her own food, until now. In partnership with ACE, James, Sarah, and Jenna will build a vertical garden made of recycled 55-gallon drums and native bamboo that will supply enough food for her to feed her family with the vegetables they need.

In addition to Ms. Maumpe’s house, we will be building a bamboo hydroponic system, much like the one below, for the Galina Breeze Hotel, operated by ACE, that will serve as a training center for future garden owners.

We need $2500 in order to accomplish this goal! Please consider supporting our cause, and if you are unable to do so financially, please share this with people you know.

Donate Here! Remember 100% of donations go directly to build the garden!

Kula Project started just 7 months ago, and we cannot believe our blessings! Since May of last year, we have spent a month in Swaziland, signed a lease on farmland in Woodstock, GA to start demo farm and training center, established incredible partnerships with organizations such as ACE in Jamaica, Serv International in the Dominican Republic and Kenya, Project Live Love in Atlanta, and established several opportunities to build local gardens in the Atlanta area! Our support has been truly unbelievable! In the coming weeks, we will be working working with Root Radius, an awesome organization that will help us with out marketing, website, etc, so stay tuned!

Our 501(c)3 is still pending, but that hasn’t stopped us! We are grateful to all those that continue to support Kula Project because they believe in us, and we ask that in the meantime, you continue to share our posts on Facebook and Twitter and by word of mouth!

Thanks for all the #kulalove! Stay tuned for all of our ongoing and upcoming projects!

When you think of Africa, what is the first thought that comes to your mind? Poverty? AIDS? Malaria? Dirty water? Civil war? Starving children? These are the normal associations, and they are all true, but when you go to Africa, you realize it is so much more than that.

James and I arrived in Swaziland not knowing what to expect. I had traveled to Kenya a couple of times, and James has traveled all over the world but not in Africa. We knew that this tiny nation has the highest HIV/AIDS rate in world, as well as one of the youngest life expectancies on earth at 29 years old. The list of numbers such as these seems endless. But when you are there, working alongside them, you begin to see them as people, not statistics.

The first Sunday we were there, Antony, our farm partner, invited James and me to attend church with him, so we did. I expected everyone to stare at us because we would be the only white people in the church, but they didn’t. I expected everyone else to look like a missionary in their long skirts and loose shirts because that’s how I was dressed, but they didn’t. Everyone was in the Sunday best, and I was under dressed. I expected church to be 5 hours long, but it wasn’t. I expected everyone to play this African role that I had created for them in my American mind, but they didn’t. It was in the moment that I realized, they do not want or need us Americans feeling bad for them. They don’t want you look at them with pity and try to “fix” them. I believe they want you to appreciate their culture, at least attempt to learn some of their language, respect them enough to introduce new technologies, but most importantly, respect them enough to understand that they have things to teach you as well.

When we were constructing our farm, we ran into speed bump after speed bump, but it was the Swazis and Kenyans we were working with that offered up the solution, and James and I would laugh because we would have never have thought of it. As the building process went along, people would stop by, ask us what we were doing, and ask if they could learn too. After a few minutes, they would offer their ideas, and more often than not, we implemented them.

Yes, the problems many Africans face are unimaginable. Yes, the realities are devastating. Yes, you see things on a daily basis that will tear you apart. However, what if we shifted our focus… What if the conversation evolved from “Poor Africa”? How much would change if we started celebrating the successes and growth instead repeatedly telling Africa how poor and sad she is? We saw first hand what this Africa looks like, the good and the bad. We worked alongside people everyday that learn, laugh, sing, and tell really great stories. They are grateful for what they have learned and are learning, but also eager to teach you their ideas, and their smiles are amongst the most genuine I have ever seen.

So, over the past month, more than anything, we were encouraged. We built a farm, but more importantly, we taught people how to build a farm that can overcome many of the challenges farmers face. It is up to them to care for it, maintain it, and expand it, but we will lend our support every step of the way. We believe in Swaziland, and we believe in the potential of Africa and all that we can learn from her.

I know many people may be offended by this, but it is not intended to spark controversy. I just think our focus is wrong. I haven’t been to every African country, and I haven’t met every African, but I know that ones I have met want me to look at them on the same level as myself, to see their potential, not their setbacks. So that is what Kula Project will do, and maybe you will join us, maybe you won’t, but either way, we believe this is the beginning of something great.

The past couple of weeks have been extremely intense, as we prepare to leave for Swaziland in just over one month. James has been planting in all kinds of recycled containers and testing different gravity-watering systems because we know when working in developing countries, you need a plan A-Z.

I just completed draft 8 of our business plan, and there have been several times where I wanted to throw the papers across the room and never look at it again, but I always do. We have sent off our supply list for our first international farm along with our training schedule, and we are waiting on Africa time to get the final costs and such.

Also, we filmed a short video for an Atlanta startup contest, and the video with the most “LIKES” gets $10,000! If you would, please take 1 minute and 38 seconds to watch and LIKE our video on Youtube. Sharing it would be awesome, too. I have video posted below, but make sure you click the link below and LIKE it via Youtube, otherwise your vote doesn’t count.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nsVxtMG7UQ

For me, though, I am most excited about our first press write-up.

I didn’t even know it had been published until I received an email from my friend’s mom! The article was released online with the Roswell Patch, and the first sentence mentioned Table&Main.

I’m not sure if I have accurately expressed just how much of a blessing it has been to work at Table&Main over the past year. I’ve met the most incredible people on both sides of the bar that have helped me beyond measure! In counting my blessings, this one is high on the list.

The article was short, but for me, it was huge. People other than my 600 or so Facebook friends will read about us, and hopefully believe in what we are doing just as much as we do.

This is a good week.

http://roswell.patch.com/articles/roswell-non-profit-using-hydroponic-farming-to-feed-the-world

On Sunday, Andy Stanley said, “We were created to care.” We were created to care… It seems so simple, yet the action of actually caring seems so complex. I mean, people care. People care about which candidate you’re voting for in November, what your stance on gay marriage is, what the title on the front of your holy book says, who defriended you on facebook, etc. People are definitely caring, but what would happen if we shifted the things we cared about? What if arguing about who should be president shifted to caring about how to work together to make this country better or your right to freely vote for whomever you wish. Do you think you would be the best option for the presidential office? Perfect. You can even vote for yourself. What if instead of caring about what God you believe in or how you define marriage shifted to caring about loving one another and turning love into an actual verb. I don’t want to get political, and I know this is so idealistic, but Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” We were created to care.

Meditating on this statement, I decided to write down what exactly it was that the Kula Project cares about. This is what I came up with:

We care about the children that do not have food to eat and the parents that don’t have the money or resources to feed them.
We care about the farmer that has very little water and doesn’t know there is an option that needs 90% less water.
We care about the farmer that wants to buy a refrigerator, so he could keep his produce longer and be able to sell more, but they don’t have access to the money.
We care about the empty bellies that can’t focus in school because they can’t remember when they had their last meal.
We care about bringing a new solution to an old problem.
We care about our earth, our home, and recognize that is a precious gift that we must treat with reverence.
We care about the people who support us, giving us strength.
We care about the people who doubt us, giving us determination.

I believe a challenge for all of us, in some area in our lives, is to care differently.