Empower Guatemalan Families With Food & Nutrition

Dear Friends,

The rainy season has arrived in the Guatemalan highlands, and with it, that particular green that makes everything feel possible. Our extensionist team has been out in it, boots muddy, trucks loaded with seedlings, walking alongside hundreds of families as spring plantings became first harvests, and first harvests became something even more powerful: income, confidence, and food on the table. Because of you, this season brought stories we can't wait to share.

From Garden to Income: Harvests That Pay

When Julieta joined the program, her garden lived in pots on her terrace. This spring, with guidance from our team, she moved her growing space to the land surrounding her fruit trees in Santa María Visitación, and her fig harvest came in strong. She began preparing candied figs to sell, earning Q1,500 (about $195) for her family, with lemons and peaches now adding to the harvest.

She's not alone. Marisol proudly told our team she sold celery from her garden and bought sugar with the earnings, the first time her garden paid for something at the market. Gricelda's tomato harvest meant six weeks without buying tomatoes at market prices. Elena, another Program member, after selling surplus vegetables and raising her chickens to a healthy five pounds, reinvested her earnings by purchasing six more birds. Gardens are becoming engines of family agency.

A Growing Crop Takes Hold: Oyster Mushrooms

Your support helped expand something new this season: oyster mushroom production. The first flushes of the season sprouted in April, and families in Chocolá are already harvesting this protein-rich food. When a worm infestation threatened one participant's crop, our team helped her successfully fight it off, and production has now expanded to Xejuyup, where families have learned to prepare and disinfect the growing substrate themselves. New skills, new protein, new possibilities.

Beyond the Harvest: Nutrition and Clean Water

Because wellbeing is about more than growing food, our extensionists pair every visit with education. In Paculún, a cooking demonstration turned unfamiliar eggplant into a dish families loved. In home visits, we shared the science of the first 1,000 days of life. One participant told us no one had ever discussed infant nutrition with her family before. And clean water reached more homes through filters delivered with personal, one-on-one training.

Growing Our Reach: A New Partnership in Quetzaltenango

We're thrilled to share that our Extension Program is expanding into a new department in Quetzaltenango through a partnership with Xela Aid (Local Hope Guatemala). For more than 30 years, Xela Aid has empowered families in San Martín Sacatepéquez to become healthy, educated, and self-reliant through health care, education, and clean water programs serving thousands each year. Their deep community trust and our regenerative home-farming methodology are a natural fit, especially in a region where chronic child malnutrition remains among the highest in the country. Together, we bring the Seeds for a Future program model, create jobs for local leaders, and empower new families who need it most.

You Made This Happen

None of this happens without you. Your generosity put seeds in trays, mushrooms on tables, income in the hands of women feeding their families, and our program on the road to a new department. Thank you for growing with us.

With deep gratitude, 

Leilani Yats 

Executive Director

Links:

• Our monthly blog highlights program insight + in-country work