It's Complicated

by Aly Lewis

We’ve been seduced.

According to development blog, Tales from the Hood, in the recent post, Cost, “we’ve become totally seduced by the belief that solving the basic problems of the world can be done cheaply and easily.”

And the seducer?

NGOs. Charities that flaunt such irresistible slogans as “ ‘98 cents of your dollar goes directly to beneficiaries’, ‘your $100 buys a poor family a cow and gets them out of poverty’, or ‘feel good about making a difference while on vacation.’ ”

Saving the world is just one click—and your credit card information—away.

Whether the starry-eyed romantic or the diehard cynic, we’ve fallen head over heels with programs that boast of tangible results, low overhead, and quick fixes to the world’s problems, but the truth is, it’s complicated.

As a staff member of an NGO that writes about the difference Plant With Purpose is making in the lives of the rural poor, I can’t figure out if I’m the seducer or the seducee (not to be confused with the Sadducees of the New Testament). When I report on the use of grant funds I want to tell funders that we’ve met all of our objectives, that lives are being transformed, that their money is already making a difference. I want to say X number of families no longer live in poverty and no longer have hardships.

But it’s just not true. Sometimes we don’t meet all of our objectives because of drought or economic downturn or political unrest. Sometimes responding to immediate needs or adapting to a rapidly changing environment is just more important. Sometimes we make mistakes, but we learn valuable lessons from our mistakes as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe Plant With Purpose’s programs are making a remarkable impact on the lives of those we work with—I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. We do report real stories of progress and transformation. Families are improving their nutrition and increasing their income and sending their children to school. Your donations are making a difference.

It’s just that oftentimes reality isn’t some ride-off-into-the-sunset-happy-ending. That’s not reality in my life, or the lives of most people I know, and it’s not the reality of the people we serve.

While we may not be able to give you glorious results all tied up with a pretty bow, you can rest assured that Plant With Purpose is committed to working with rural communities to engage in the process of empowerment and transformation, no matter how messy or complicated that is. At Plant With Purpose we wholeheartedly believe in empowering the poor to take charge of their own lives and solve their own problems. Yes, we provide technical assistance and training. Yes, we plant trees and administer microloans, but the real, often intangible, result of our partnership is a restoration of people’s dignity as they gain the skills and confidence they need to work toward a better future.

And that is something I think we should all fall in love with.

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Aly Lewis is Plant With Purpose’s Grant Writer. She researches funding opportunities, writes proposals, and submits progress reports on funding received. She also writes the content for Plant With Purpose's Sponsor A Village program.

A Taste of Thai: Celebrating Food, Culture, and Communities

by Stephanie Rudeen, Grant Writing Intern

Often when an organization enters an impoverished community, it is easy to put aside the country, the culture, and the people that have existed there before the organization, and will continue to exist after. Even for any person, when he or she presses the donate button on a webpage or places a few wrinkled dollars into a Haiti relief jar, it is easy to focus on the immediate problem, and not think about the rich history and past of that community or group of people as well.

While many things make up the complex and rich culture and history of countries and communities, I can’t help but always be enraptured by a community’s food. For me, food is a complex and vital component of any community, and a looking glass into a community’s very structure and survival. Plant With Purpose sees the complexity of cooking and food to a community, and does its part by offering fuel-efficient stoves to many of the communities it works in. Beyond even the environmental, economic, and health benefits of these stoves, fuel-efficient stoves also help marriages grow since husbands spend more time with their wives in the kitchen because there is less harmful smoke. Recognizing the importance and complexity of cooking and the kitchen is recognizing that the heart of a community lays within what has been there all along – the traditions and culture of that community.

One of my personal favorite foods is Thai, a country that Plant With Purpose has partnered with to bring about lasting change. Although I often go to Thai restaurants, I had never researched the traditional foods of Northern Thailand, the part of Thailand where Plant With Purpose works. According to asiarecipe.com, “the northern breakfast [is] known in the local dialect as khao gnai consisting mainly of steamed glutinous rice. Cooked in the early hours of the day, steamed glutinous rice is packed in a wicker baskets made from bamboo splints or palmyra palm leaves. The farmer takes the packed basket to the working rice field and eats the glutinous rice as lunch, known in the dialect as ‘khaw tom’. Dinner or ‘khaw lang’ is served on [a] raised wooden tray or ‘kan toke.’”

As a child I would often watch my own mother bake pie at home, her specialty, and watch her while she delicately pushed the tissue paper thin crust into the bottom of the pan. Yet, as I grew older, I stopped helping and observing my mother as she cooked and baked, and I began to stop recognizing the art that exists within the kitchen. I believe it is important to recognize and observe the art of cooking, and it is also important to listen to the story and culture that is behind each flaky piecrust and grain of rice.

I feel as if lately, an American food staple has been take out from a local chain restaurant, and my mind cannot help but wander off to thoughts of my own family’s cooking. There is no comparison between a greasy, pre-made hamburger wrapped in yellow wax paper and served in a brown bag, and the complex and intriguing story that emerges from each bite of one of my mother’s pies or a grain of cooked rice in Northern Thailand.

Plant With Purpose strives to help communities grow, while at the same time not interfere with what makes each community unique. So next time you press the donate button, also take some time to get to know a different community, because every aspect of the culture, even just a bite of its local food, represents a community with a complex and fascinating story to tell.

"Under the Rubble"

First published by tothesource.org on January 21, 2010

Under the Rubble

by Scott Sabin, Executive Director

The earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12^th was unimaginably devastating, killing as many as 200,000 people, utterly destroying Haiti’s fragile infrastructure and demolishing some of its most important symbols of national identity and pride. The blow has been so complete and so demoralizing that more than one Haitian has said “Haiti is done.”

In my role as Executive Director of Plant With Purpose (formerly Floresta), a Christian development agency with long-term work in Haiti, this has been particularly difficult to watch. I have visited Haiti perhaps 30 times in the past 15 years. Though I work from San Diego, we have a local staff of 42 amazingly dedicated Haitians. Thankfully, all are accounted for and well, although one of our workers lost his wife and ten-day old son when their house collapsed on them.  Fifteen years ago I wasn't all that excited about working in a nation sometimes referred to as "the graveyard of good intentions."    My first impression of Port-au-Prince was that the tide had come in and stranded garbage and rubble everywhere. Rotting fruit and raw sewage smells combined with the smell of frying meat and exhaust. People spilled out on to the broken streets in every sort of dress imaginable, filling alleys and turning the sidewalks into an impromptu market. In the countryside, a constant parade of pedestrians streamed down either side of the road: old women leading donkeys, men carrying machetes and groups of schoolchildren in ragged yellow uniforms. High above the road, every slope was cultivated with struggling cornfields.  Pere Jean-Wilfrid Albert, an almost superhuman Haitian Episcopal priest who worked in the mountains not far from the epicenter of last week's quake, sparked my special love for Haiti. Banished to a remote rural parish, with virtually nothing, he had, on his own initiative, founded over 30 schools and was responsible for the education of over 13,000 children. (Although Pere Albert died far too young, a victim of cancer, his work is carried on today by the Haitian Education Foundation.)  It was Pere Albert who first showed me what the farmers who make up the bulk of Haiti's population are up against. Yet in spite of the odds against them, their singing rings through the hills each morning as they work together to cultivate hillsides that you and I would find difficult to walk on. Too often portrayed as victims, they are the ultimate survivors.  I remember my first visit to one of those mountain communities. About forty farmers, men and women, waited for us in a tin-roofed shelter. As I surveyed the spectacular setting – from the top of the ridge, the Caribbean was clearly visible to the south, Haiti's tallest mountain, Pic La Selle was in the clouds to the east, and the brilliant blue water of the Bay of Port au Prince sparkled to the north - several people sidled up to me holding out their hands and rubbing their stomachs.  As we met, a woman stood up and in a confrontational tone told me about the other humanitarian and aid agencies that had worked in the area. "Agency X was here, they gave us food - they are gone," she said, listing them. "How is Floresta going to be any different?"  Although I was a bit taken aback, after giving it some consideration, I responded, "Well first of all we are not going to give anything away, and secondly we are not going to leave until you ask us to."  It was her turn to be taken aback.  After that first meeting, our local staff began meeting with the farmers group on a regular basis. They facilitated planning, provided training, and organized a loan group.  Three years later, I again made the trek up the stony ridges to that little village and was met by a very different group. No one asked me for money. They were eager to tell me all that had been accomplished in the community. A credit group had been formed and was making loans. Many farmers had bought the land they had been renting. Trees had been planted. Rainwater harvesting systems and cisterns had been constructed. Fruit trees had been grafted. But the highlight of the meeting occurred when one of women stood up and proudly told me: "What you have given us is the knowledge that we are not helpless, but that God has given us talents that we can use to change our community."  Working together we have accomplished small but remarkable things, but they represent the accomplishments of the poor themselves. More than 420,000 trees have been planted by farmers who are practicing a whole new type of agriculture, suited for steep hillsides and far more productive. Because it makes sense for them economically, these farmers will go on planting trees long after we are gone. Thousands of small business loans have been made. Fruit production has been improved. Hundreds of miles of soil erosion control measures – often living barriers of trees - have been installed and hundreds of rainwater harvesting systems have been built. Dozens of Bible studies have been held.  But Plant With Purpose, and our Haitian staff have merely been a catalyst for their success. The loans we have made (with a repayment rate of 98%) and the training we have provided have helped to uncover the talents of the people themselves.  Too often aid fails because it is applied without understanding the needs of the people who receive it and without involving them in the planning. Furthermore, nothing is required of them. Aid is done to them, by outsiders. In time it robs them of dignity, self confidence and initiative.  If the post-earthquake relief and recovery effort in Haiti is to succeed, Haitians need to participate in its planning and execution. Our Haitian director, Guy Paraison is meeting today with relief committees and mayors in several towns and cities in our region to talk about their plans and needs for recovery.  After the hurricanes of 2008 he did a similar thing. The local people came up with a plan for supplying seed to those who had been forced to eat their seed after the storms. Two thousand families received new seed and had an abundant harvest, from which they repaid us. Today – by the grace of God – we have several tons of beans stored, not originally intended for an emergency such as this, but suddenly available. Through this experience, we saw leaders gain confidence, and experienced a blossoming of enthusiasm for the rest of our program, as all were energized by the success. That's because we never gave away food, clothing or shelter – we worked to equip people and gave away love and hope.  However, today, as the international community descends on Haiti like a mighty army, I am already hearing stories of local officials being excluded from meetings. I am reading discussions of plans to fix Haiti which involve no Haitian voices. The Haitian government is continually discounted. Granted it was weak before the disaster and has been decimated. However, for Haiti to move forward, Haitian leaders must be at the head of the table. Leaders, at all levels, must be given the opportunity to lead.  We must also be careful of the labels we apply. Labels have a tendency to be self-fulfilling. As Haitian national symbols have crumbled, repeating fictitious stories of a pact with the devil does nothing to build up those who mourn, and worse, casts doubt on the very character of God. Similarly, I have yet to read a news report that does not mention that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. While this is undoubtedly true, it is certainly not the whole story, or even the most important part of the story.  I think I understand why Haiti has been the graveyard of good intentions -- too many well-intentioned people want to do for the Haitians what they so desperately want to do for themselves. Today they may need us to do much for them, but as quickly as possible our role should become one of empowerment and support – alongside them.  Those roads, villages and people, who had seemed so ominous in the spring of 1995 are as familiar as family to me now. We have yet to determine the full impact of the earthquake's impact on the 67 villages where Plant With Purpose works, but we are confident that the villagers will rebuild. They are not "done."  Dreadfully misunderstood and overcoming impossible odds, Haitians still manage to face life with a smile, pulling themselves together each morning to toil under the blazing sun. They face their depleted hillside farms with a song. It is not a burden, but an honor, to work alongside them.

Strengths Finding and Maximizing

by Aly Lewis

I love personality tests. I mean, I really love personality tests. In the last year, the only times my roommates and I have stayed up gabbing past midnight have been to indulge in Myers-Briggs banter and psycho-analysis. No boy talk for us—unless, of course, we’re scrutinizing to death the men in our lives based on personality tests. My obsession was solidified when I realized I type the term INTP into my phone more often than the word goes while texting (and that’s not even my personality type!).

Another test I’m particularly fond of (although not quite as obsessed with) is StrengthsFinder. This test pinpoints a person’s top five strengths—the rationale being that it is easier to focus on and cultivate your strengths than to eliminate your weaknesses. In honor of StrengthsFinder and personality-test-lovers everywhere, I would like to highlight what I think to be one of Plant With Purpose’s greatest strengths: maximizing.

Simply put, a Maximizer is someone who can readily identify others’ strengths and helps them build on and improve these strengths. Some key characteristics of a maximizer include seeing talents and strengths in others, sometimes before they do, and helping others become excited by the potential of their natural talents. I know, I know, Plant With Purpose is not a single person but an organization, but if it were one single person, I’m pretty sure he/she would test Maximizer—every time.

One of Plant With Purpose’s main goals is to work with communities to discover and maximize their God-given talents. Our goal isn’t to take the limelight or prescribe a specific program, but to equip and encourage rural farmers to utilize and maximize the skills, talents, and resources they already possess. (I feel like I can’t stop writing about this transformational and radical process of empowerment, but, like the cat who just keeps coming back, I can’t seem to stray too far from my community development awe).

I want to thank all of Plant With Purpose’s international staff for their commitment to individuals and communities around the world, their compassion for struggling and impoverished farmers, and their dedicated efforts to help often overlooked and forgotten people to reach their full potential and transform their lives. Thanks for all the strengths finding and maximizing!

Beauty on the Border

by Scott Sabin As our two pickups struggle through the grass and mud, it is clear that we are the first to pass this way in at least a few days. In the pouring rain the entire road, what Carlos, Plant With Purpose’s Dominican director, calls the international highway, seems like it could wash down the side of the mountain. Rising thirty or forty feet to our right is a tangle of green. Old tree trunks are visible through the undergrowth, and branches with reddish bromeliads overhang our path. Patches of heavy mist drift through the trees and obscure the tops of the mountain. To our left is a vertigo-inducing drop-off into thin air, the valleys of Haiti visible far in the distance. We are driving between impoverished border communities through Sierra de Neiba National Park in the Dominican Republic, near the Haitian border. It is a place of breathtaking beauty. After crossing the pass, we begin the winding descent down the other side of the mountain range. The forest changes from broadleaf to tall pines. After three days of visiting our work in the struggling hillside communities to the south, the park is a reminder of how magnificent this island once was. I begin to feel as though I’ve caught a glimpse of how things were meant to be in the Garden. One can only speculate about what creation in a pre-Fall world must have been like, yet for all that the curse has tainted and all that human sin has done to damage our earth, the beauty of what God has made still shines through everywhere. God’s ability to work things together for good is obvious in the intricate ways that ecosystems like this fit together so perfectly. Nothing is wasted, and everything has its niche. Everywhere life springs forth from death, and resurrection is foreshadowed. Soon we drop out of the trees and leave the park. As we wind our way down muddy switchbacks, the forest gives way to newly planted bean fields blanketing all but the steepest slopes. The view is still spectacular, but now there is much that is clearly broken. Here the curse is obvious. Huge rills caused by erosion are a testimony to the unsustainable nature of the agriculture. On the far side of the gorge, above the flood-scarred dry wash that marks the border, dozens of Haitian homesteads dot the hillsides. There, years of intense cultivation have given erosion a head start, and the exposed bedrock that fills the fields is a portent for the Dominican side as well. This is new territory for me; Plant With Purpose only recently completed initial surveys on this side of the park. The first village we come to, a collection of wooden shacks, a one-room school, and a military border checkpoint, has been appropriately nicknamed “The Armpit.” The conventional wisdom, that you can tell the location of the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti by where the trees stop, isn’t entirely true, but it is close—the greater population density on the Haitian side makes the border obvious. But on both sides, circumstances have made it challenging for people to live without destroying their environment. And the environment returns the favor, its degradation making life tenuous for these forgotten people. It is a broken relationship in a fallen world. Poverty limits the options of farmers who have no resources other than the hillsides. When times get especially hard, they cut the trees to sell as firewood. The Dominicans can clear more of the forest to plant their beans, moving into the edges of the national park, but the Haitians must cross the border daily to sharecrop the Dominican bean fields. They trade half their crops for the right to farm Dominican hills, taking their unsustainable farming practices deeper into the Dominican Republic. As the trees fall, the soil continues to erode and the watershed continues to degrade, robbing the farmers of their two most important assets—soil and water. Thus, poverty spreads and is clearly visible in the eyes and on the faces of the shoeless workers that walk back and forth across this border. But even here, there is hope. There is good news and there are options. The people may be disempowered, they may need to be reminded of their own God-given talents, but they are not stupid or helpless. Like all of us, they need to be reminded of their own importance in the eyes of God and of the love he has for them. The good news of the kingdom is that they can begin to live as if the curse were lifted. Relationships with God, creation, and neighbor can begin to heal. Creation need not be an enemy. Farmers can learn other ways to farm that work with the steep hillsides, instead of against them. Trees can be planted that thrive in this environment and provide income to poor families while slowing soil erosion and restoring the watershed. Waste can be used as fertilizer rather than river pollutant. By mimicking the diversity of creation and its cycles, a new, healthier relationship can be created. New life can come from decay. Like all of our relationships, these new relationships are still tainted by the fall, but they can be improved and health can be restored. Finally, as Dominicans and Haitians, people with a long history of mistrust and even violence, work together for a common purpose as brothers and sisters in the Lord, relationships between troubled neighbors can be healed. In the few years that Plant With Purpose has been working on the other side of the park, we have begun to see the changes that occur when individuals and communities rediscover their God-given potential and heal their land. Tiny trees cover the hillsides. Beans are being replaced with a diversity of crops that make the best use of the steep hillsides and scarce water. There is reconciliation between Haitian and Dominican. It still doesn’t look like the park and never will, but there is perhaps even greater beauty in the redemption that is taking place as life springs forth from death. Here in the Armpit, that redemption is still only a prayer, but we look forward with great anticipation to the healing that is to come. This article was recently published in The Other Journal. Scott Sabin is the Executive Director of Plant With Purpose. To read other recent articles by and about Scott, click here to read "Celebrating Freedom" and click here to read "The Accidental Environmentalist".

Tea Anyone?

By Kate McElhinney Have you ever read a book that’s so good you can’t put it down? You start the first chapter at 10:00 p.m., thinking you’ll read a few pages, and then drift off into a good night’s sleep. But instead, you stay up all night reading, quickly devouring every word until you triumphantly finish the story just as the sun comes up. From the moment I delved into the book Three Cups of Tea, this was the case. I don’t want to give too much of it away, but the story is about a mountain climber named Greg Mortenson who stumbles across a poor village in Pakistan during a failed attempt to climb K2. Appalled at the lack of school buildings in the community, which experiences freezing winds during the winter, Mortenson returns to the United States and begins raising money to build schools for children, particularly girls, in rural parts of the far East. Plant With Purpose has a similar story of altruism. But instead of building schools for girls, we focus on empowering poor rural farmers to lift themselves out of poverty by teaching them sustainable agro-forestry techniques. And in the past 25 years, we have seen tremendous progress as hundreds of hillsides have been reforested, thousands of micro-credit loans have been distributed, and farmers have experienced renewed hope. There are so many good causes in the world. People fighting against AIDS, sex slavery, hunger, and deforestation. What’s your cause?

Learning to Love, In Manageable Chunks

by Aly Lewis Paper or plastic? The haunting question of the millennium symbolizing the sheer volume of choices the average American makes on a given day. If I weren’t an avid supporter of paper over plastic this question would induce a mini-panic attack every time I found myself face-to-face with a checkout boy or girl. In theory. Despite my pleasure at feigning displeasure at all of the choices I have to make on a daily basis, the truth is I love being in control. What really stresses me out or leaves me beleaguered (my new favorite word) are the things I can’t choose. As much as we’d like to charge forward as autonomous, capable human beings, there are a lot of things we can’t control. Where we were born, for example. Who our parents are. Whether or not our retirement fund has decreased by 70% in the past six months—not that mine was anything substantial to begin with. Recently I’ve come to the mini-epiphany that regardless of my circumstance or how I feel about a situation or all of the million and one factors that conspire to render me paralyzed and hopeless, I can still choose love. Maybe you’ve all realized this years ago and I’m just a bit of late bloomer, but I find it incredibly empowering to know that I can choose my response. I can’t choose whether or not the world is fair or children die of starvation in Africa (well, not as directly as I’d like), but I can choose my attitude and my next steps. I wrote earlier about manageable chunks, or small things we can do to make a difference in the world, and still think they’re the best way to bring about lasting change, the best way to learn to choose love. And I guess this isn’t so much of a new epiphany as more of an addendum to my theory that baby steps get the snowball rolling (to mix metaphors). It’s those baby, baby steps of selflessness and compassion that spur us toward becoming more loving, more compassionate, and more fully engaged in our world. The knowledge that I can choose to love and empower and give through my thoughts and actions is becoming exceedingly redemptive for me. I can make a difference little by little. I can learn and grow little by little. I can love little by little. Hound me later if you think I’m being trite, but welcome to my new obsession: “manageable chunks of love.”

Thailand Community Spotlight: Huai Mak Liem

Plant With Purpose works with rural hill tribes in Northern Thailand to help holistically address the social, economic and environmental issues plaguing these upland farmers and their land. Since 2003, we have built relationships with 55 families living in the Huai Mak Liem community in the Palaung village in Thailand. The biggest projects these people are working on, in conjunction with our local partner the Upland Holistic Development Project (UHDP), are backyard agriculture, fish farms, building latrines and cisterns, animal husbandry and a community pig project, and family gardens. One community member, Mr. Sang Lawan, is a 62 year-old former community leader who specializes in making Palaung jewelry. He is only 1 of 3 in the entire northern Thai region who can make this unique type of craft. Mr. Sang purchases 1.5 kilos of silver at an acquisition cost of 15,000 baht, but is able to convert that into 35,000 to 40,000 in a few months. He acquires much of his silver from Indian coins, (rupees) that circulated around in the early 1900’s and he melts them to make the jewelry. Once he is finished, he is able to sell a silver bracelet for 1,000 baht with a cost of 400 baht. Mr. Sang says that he sees Palaung jewelry as an important part of the Thai culture and he wants to preserve this tradition. Unfortunately, he has an eye problem and has not been able to make any jewelry lately. He is being treated by a doctor and hopes to return to his craftsmanship soon. According to Mr. Sang, the biggest felt need in the community is the lack of land. Most land is owned by one family. The owner does not charge rent, the tenant’s residence is only a verbal agreement, but he is willing to sell to the tenants at 5,000 baht for each house. Therefore Mr. Sang is worried if something were to happen to the landowner. Since the agreement is verbal, he is concerned about the stability of the community’s living situation. A total of 11 families have moved here with the owner’s permission. That’s all for now…stay tuned for more updates from the field! Click here to read more about Plant With Purpose's work with local farmers in Thailand. Click here to sponsor a village in Thailand.

Community Development: Daring to Dream

by Aly Lewis When I began my job as Plant With Purpose’s Grant Writer I was relatively new to the International Development scene—microcredit and sustainability aren’t exactly staples of the Creative Writing major’s vocabulary. But in my time at Plant With Purpose, I’ve found the key to successful development programs isn’t based on knowledge or jargon. Success in the development world comes from being human and viewing others as such. I may not know a whole lot about development (although I’m learning), but I do know what it’s like to be human. I know what it’s like to feel hopeless and disempowered. I know what it’s like to not want to be overlooked or have my skills and talents disregarded. I don’t like to have things done for me, and the only way I actually change or grow or solve problems is when the problem solving approach is something completely unique to me. The people who’ve been most influential in my life—my mom, my best friends, college mentors—have all been people who help me unlock my gifts and talents, helping me become more fully who I was meant to be. That’s what Plant With Purpose does. Sure we work with communities to plant trees and apply sustainable agriculture techniques. We supply microloans and train church leaders to respond to the needs of their congregations and communities, but the most significant part of Plant with Purpose’s work is that the work or “development” being done isn’t Plant With Purpose’s work at all. It’s the communities’. Plant With Purpose takes a “community development approach.” In other words, we empower communities to start to take responsibility for the solutions to their own problems. Plant With Purpose views the farmers we work with as partners, not fix-it-projects or mere passengers on this development journey. Lasting change cannot occur unless people want to change—and more importantly—believe that they can change. You can’t actually force anyone to grow—just ask any mother of a teenager. That’s why Plant With Purpose conducts a Participatory Rural Appraisal before starting work in any community. During these appraisals the community decides what their greatest needs are and what needs to be done to solve them. Only if Plant With Purpose’s expertise aligns with the community’s needs do we begin to work with them. Plant With Purpose empowers hopeless communities to begin to dream again. The communities provide the vision and the dream; we provide the tools, training, and means to turn their dreams into reality.