Help Travis and teams mission to revitalize Andean Community

Hello - My name is Travis Warrner and I am a Project Manager for T.A. Loving Company in North Carolina. Today, I am asking for your help for a volunteering project that my friends and I are currently organizing in the Andes Mountain Range outside of Cusco, Peru. We have partnered with 2 incredible organizations - Campesina Forestal and The Leap, to make an incredible impact in a local community.

The town of Qquencco sits atop Cusco and has been struggling for decades with deforestation and soil degradation. The community lives in poverty and migration away from this village threatens its extinction. Campesina Forestal is hoping to change that by revitalizing the 1400 hectares (~3400 acres), including regenerating the soil's health, enhancing the water retention capacity of their reservoir, and optimizing the income of the land via agroforestry, timber products, and ecotourism. This will mean planting 1 million trees, implementing water infiltration and harvesting structures and maximizing crop output in the community.

Our team is currently planning to mobilize in March 2026 for one calendar week with the intent to extend and improve the dam of the existing water reservoir. Currently, the reservoir has a capacity of 4,000 cubic meters (~1 million gallons). The ultimate goal is to increase the capacity to at least 15,000 cubic meters (~4 million gallons). You can imagine the impact that increasing their water capacity 4 fold will have on the community, including increasing agroforestry plots and strawberry greenhouses, as well as recharging the groundwater.

To complete this task, we will remove some of the stones and earth from the reservoir and then elevate the dam height by 1 meter, and length by 10 meters. This elevation extension will greatly increase the water storage capacity. We will then reinforce the existing earth and stone dam with gabions to ensure structural stability and longevity. The overall costs for the equipment and material needed to complete this work will be $4,500.00

Our team consists of 9 industry professionals from a variety of different companies and backgrounds. Our hope is to provide the absolute greatest amount of impact that we can in the short period of time we will be there. Although we are more than willing to pay out of pocket for this project, we would appreciate any support you are able to provide. Donations we receive will be processed in the following order:

$00.00-$4,500.00 - This portion will go directly towards the materials and equipment on the project.

$4,500.01-$12,000.00 - This portion will go towards all airfare to travel to Cusco, Peru and back.

$12,000.01+ - Any money over $12,000.00 will be split 50/50 between the NGO Campesina Forestal (tax ID available upon request) and the project team.

Each individual member is currently paying $3,000.00 out of pocket to cover program costs, including lodging, meals, etc. As an example, if we reach our goal of $20,000. This would cover 100% of the materials and equipment cost, as well as flights. We would then donate $4,000 to Campesina Forestal and use $4,000 to subsidize the out of pocket cost for each volunteer.

We are so grateful for your support, and thank you so much for taking the time to look at this project!

Sincerely,

Travis

p.s. - For a video explaining this amazing organization in more detail, see the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ez1It79dgE