Sustainable Seafood Hatchery & Garden, JOBS!

Thank you for considering to support our auto-sustainable hatchery and agriculture project in response to the COVID pandemic in Guatemala! 


Let me be direct: This project will directly give sustainable work opportunities and both short and long-term hunger solutions to poor unemployed families, most led by single-mothers, living with food scarcity and often illness. 


Don’t hesitate to read the OUR STORY section, highlighting our struggle from day 1 of the pandemic to a spontaneous call to action that has accomplished so much.  


About La Bendición

La Bendición is a 2 block by 1 block neighborhood of ~600 families all living in poverty, located in San Pedro Las Huertas just outside of Antigua. Most houses are made of cement blocks or even just aluminum siding, and without access to running water or sanitation systems most families have to carry buckets of water to their households from 3 public taps. Many families are led by single mothers (who are also the leaders of our project!) and scarce work opportunities for families include construction, tending to coffee or avocado farms, or miscellaneous sales of local fruits. 


Please look at the posted photos to get a better idea of the neighborhood


Key Project Information

Location: Neighborhood La Bendición in San Pedro Las Huertas, Sacatepequez, Guatemala


Who Benefits Short-term: 
- 10 local families (primarily run by single-mothers) who have been leading *voluntarily* the construction of this dream since April 
- El Semillero Mi Ángel Guardián (My Guardian Angel Garden), a local NGO solely run by Marta Alvarez (Fig 1) who brings agricultural expertise and experience in raising tilapia, shrimp, chickens, and more. 

Fig 1 - This is Marta, who brings years of experience in empowering single-mothers through agricultural projects. In  center in blue is Lidia, one of the local leaders and mother, cutting wood for the project. 

Who Benefits Long-term: 
- Future employees from the entire local community La Bendición

Short-term goals:
- Create an auto-sustainable garden to feed families and sell for income. Collection of seeds from plants will allow garden to be sustained after initial investment
- Raise 100 chickens for food and sale. 
- Grow Tilapia and Shrimp for sale and consumption

Long-term goals
- An open to public restaurant styled area where visitors can harvest their own vegetables to make salad plates, etc. and meanwhile to learn about ecology
- Medicinal tea and coffee bar from on-site plants
- Mushroom farm 
- To employ as many locals as possible in a variety of positions to maintain all of these projects! 

Our Inspiring COVID Story 

Guatemala was particularly vulnerable to a pandemic, and when the government imposed a complete lockdown on the country on March 13th many already poor communities who worked in the unofficial market selling goods on the streets were instantly cut off from their only source of a meager income. Guatemalans and foreigners alike immediately took to action. 


With my Salsa teacher, Gloria, we delivered lunches to homeless locals in the streets of Antigua in March, and I was surprised to have received unsolicited donations from friends in the USA encouraging me to continue the work. In partnership with a few other Guatemalan leaders, who have never met before, we began collecting donations, purchasing basic food items, and searching for the poorest of families threatened by hunger. Guatemalans literally put white flags outside of their humble homes publicly begging for assistance. In one of our many stops, we found La Bendición and instantly we knew we had to stay. 

Fig 2 - Children in the neighborhood la Bendición awaiting a small chocolate treat after some of their families received a food basket. 

On our first 2 hour visit (Fig 2), we registered over 100 families facing food scarcity, and the prospect of donating food to so many families was 1 - unsustainable and 2 - expensive. Locating the community leaders - single mothers who simply have earned the respect of the street - we planned a more sustainable solution: to create household gardens where the families who put the work in could in short time have access to free vegetables inside their homes for consumption or sale. Quickly, we realized most families did not have space for household gardens - they are living in multigenerational crowded households on small plots. With a stroke of luck, a local landowner who believed in our vision donated a large parcel of his coffee farm to our project and just like that we went from donating food baskets to planning a long-term auto-sustainable garden run by local leaders. 


Meanwhile, 15 minutes away, Marta Alvarez who single-handedly ran a women’s empowerment program for indigenous single mothers through projects in agriculture and recycling found herself struggling as well. The landlord of her project space demanded the rent payments despite Guatemala being completely locked down, and sadly she was forced to abandon this space where she and the local women were growing hundreds of plants, among other projects. 


Marta and I would shortly come to know each other very well - as well as around a dozen other local leaders and activists - and we began dreaming of a future on this donated plot of land. Marta’s vision was big, as she had previously managed other projects in raising tilapia, shrimp, and chickens for other disadvantaged communities, and she saw an opportunity. Marta inspired the locals, the landlord, and myself to turn the plot of coffee plants into a future eco-themed restaurant, with the goal of providing employment to dozens of local community members from La Bendición. 

Fig 3 - Our first Tilapia bed built in late April. 

Fig 4: Filling our first Tilapia bed with water. From left to Right is Marta, Lester, Andrés, and Henry.

Months before asking for your donation, we have been digging up coffee plants, excavating pits in the dirt for tilapia (Fig 3 and 4), and nailing together chicken coops. I have plenty of ant bites to show for this! Except for Marta, none of us have ever embarked on a project like this before. The locals who live next to the plot have been working *voluntarily* daily since mid-April hoping to achieve Marta’s vision. They know that their hard work could create a space for future employment and even ownership. Each day the ground has been changing, with rows of seeds being planted, fences going up, and tree branches coming down. All the usable material scavenged from the plot is being used in the infrastructure of our new projects. 

Fig 5 - From coffee plantation to realizing our vision. These first beds of shrimp and tilapia will allow us to reproduce more, and they are working quickly to dig more beds. 

Up until now, Marta myself and the other leaders have been progressing by pulling money from our own pockets and purchasing resources for the projects. We ourselves have put already well over $1000 into the project. The locals, mostly unemployed but hopeful, have been working for free with the goal of creating a friendly colorful eco-friendly restaurant where locals and tourists can gather to eat and drink freshly harvested produce while learning about ecology and sustainable agriculture at the same time. 


I have now left Guatemala, a country and people close to my heart, and I am inspired by Marta and the locals to fundraise $1500 so that they can have a solid investment in construction materials, seeds and plants, and enough tilapia, shrimp, and chickens so that they can manage the reproduction of all organisms and plants. Your donation is a one-time investment in their ability to reproduce more chickens and tilapia and shrimp, and more healthy vegetables and medicinal plants. Your donation sets up the potential for them to gain ownership of their own work and even employment in the creation of their restaurant and tea bar. 


I would like to especially mention and thank the local leaders who have worked on this project (Fig 6): Marta Alvarez, Lester Arias, Lidia Semiller, Andrés, Heidy, Lidia, Yuli, Josh Puac, Hugo, Henry Guerra, Sucely, Gloria, Reyes, and more.

Fig 6 - Some of the leaders and children smiling with me on my last day in Guatemala. As I departed and they promised to work for their vision despite having few resources, I promised them I would try to help financially to get their project off the ground.

Please look at the posted photos for a visual understanding of our story! 


Where Your Money Will Go

We have broken down the costs of the main projects we are currently working on. You will notice that the labor by the locals is voluntary at this point and that construction materials in Guatemala run a lot cheaper than in the States. Your dollars, even a small donation, can make a HUGE impact in Guatemala. 


G2G Network, a Nonprofit in the USA, is helping us connect all donations to Guatemala avoiding fees resulting from international border crossings. Donations are tax-deductible and a receipt of donation will be emailed to you.  


Garden Project (Fig 7)
- Investment seeds for lettuce, spinach, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, onions, herbs, and many more. Seeds from these plants will be harvested for an auto-sustainable garden
Total: $40

Fig 7: Lidia tending to the first plot planted in April, attempting to provide a source of food for the families during the pandemic lockdown. As we saw how hard they worked on this new project, we knew we had found a community who is ready to develop the vision further. 

Tilapia Project
2 new Tilapia beds
- 15 tilapias: $30 
- 8 yards of plastic: $16
- 220 lbs of Tilapia Concentrate: $60 
- Water and Salt: $7
Total: $113 per bed

6 beds for all the babies of previous beds (they reproduce quickly!)
- 8 yards of plastic: $16
- 220 lbs of Tilapia Concentrate: $60 
- Water and Salt: $7
Total: $83 per bed


Quail Project
- 12 Quails: $48
- 10 meters of wire netting: $13
- Wooden posts: $13
- Food and Water Stand: $7
- Incubation Materials for Eggs: $33
- 110 lbs of food: $33
Total: $147 One-time Payment and Quails Auto-sustain themselves


Chickens Project
- 100 chickens: $73
- 220 lbs of food: $53
- 20 meters of wire netting: $26
- Wooden Posts for Coup: $26
- 3 food feeders: $10
- 3 water feeders: $10
Total: $198


Kitchen and Restaurant Area: 
- Wood for Construction: $200
- 2000 lbs of cement: $110
- 1 m2 of sand: $16
Total: $326 and would last for years