[News Boquete] Buenos Vecinos De Boquete Newsletter April 2024

Buenos Vecinos De Boquete Newsletter April 2024

In This Issue: Family of the Month Large Plastic Bottles Needed Food Start Program Family of the Month  Jaira Obrega Jaira is a lovely woman with a pleasant demeanor and terrific smile who has seven children. Her children range from less than a year old to 12 years of age. As an active parent, she is very involved in their lives. She is also very smart and wants for her children to succeed and to be better educated than she is so they have a better life than they do now. Jaira wants the best for her children and tries to come up with activities for them that will encourage their academic and social growth. Family income is extremely limited and they are thankful to be supported by BVB. Large Plastic Bottles Needed We again need large water, vinegar, and bleach bottles with handles for our Food Start Program. Please help BVB and the Earth by recycling your large plastic jugs. Before donating them, please make sure they have been well cleaned. These bottles may bedropped off at the BVB table at the Arco Iris building, across from TapOut, at the Tuesday Market in Boquete. We should be back in the building beginning April 16, 2024 and accepting bottle donations. Food Start Program BVB has a program we call Food Start, which is a true farm to table production. Our families receive a started vegetable or fruit which could be lettuce, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, or squash – a plant that grows rapidly, will begin to produce quickly, and produces for a good amount of time. Or, they could receive a container of several types of plants. The genesis for the program was COVID-19. With the pandemic and then our uncertainty of whether we would be able to buy rice and possibly other foods, we felt it would be good to teach our clients to grow some of their own food. The primary criteria for selecting what vegetable or fruit starts were, first, what was already growing well in the area, and second, was it a familiar plant our clients would recognize and readily serve their family. We conducted a survey to measure their interest level and what plants they would like to grow. BVB member Sue Davis also talked with local gardeners to see what they suggested. Sue's neighbors showed her their sweet potato patch. They pointed out its nutritional value; local popularity; and said how easy it was to plant, propagate, and harvest within 10-12 weeks. Thanks to hundreds of generous donations from our neighbors' patch, from September to December 2022, a sandwich bag with sweet potato roots accompanied every client's monthly BVB food allotment. By December, many clients were enjoying their sweet potato harvests and replanting. John Rhoades, a new BVB member who had gardening experience, stepped forward to become the Food Start Coordinator. He skillfully organized the current program and set up the operations to provide different plants each month for those clients who were interested. In order to give our clients a started plant, we must get fertilizer, dirt, seeds ,and plastic bottles which John processes. John's good friend in Palmera, Thomas Budziszewski, donates soil as well as the time that Tito Bernacony (Budziszewski's greenhouse manager) puts into the project taking care of planting and then tending to the young crops; the rest BVB pays for except bottles. To get the plants to the clients who get their monthly food bags at the Handicap Foundation or to the volunteers who are delivering the food, Karen and Mark Friedhaber pick up the jugs on Wednesday and bring them to our monthly packing day on Thursday. Every family who wishes to receive a plant gets one. Not all families want to try to grow their own food. Sometimes this is because they don't have arable land; sometimes it is because they are unsure of how long they will be able to live where they are; sometimes it is because they do not have the time or ability to take care of one more thing. Approximately 50% of our clients take care of vegetables from BVB and enjoy the fruits of their labor. When the program began, for the first few months, we included instruction sheets with every plant telling the clients how to take care of the plants (add water as needed; provide sunlight). The clients soon learned how to take care of the plants, so instructions are not sent any longer. As you can tell, this is truly an example of "it takes a village." Since it is labor intensive, we re-evaluate Food Start, tweaking when necessary and make sure our clients are truly benefitting from it. Buenos Vecinos exists to help people who are unable to meet their basic food needs. We have provided emergency food support on many occasions and have been successful in helping families through hard times. We will help them with food support until the working age adults in the family can find enough income to become self-sustaining. If you prefer to donate by cash or local check, please visit our table in the Arco Iris building at the Tuesday Market, or contact Trish at BuenosVecinos79@gmail.com Be sure to check out our website and Facebook page: Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BuenosVecinosDeBoquete/ Website: http://www.buenosvecinosdeboquete.com/ Our partners and sponsors Copyright (C) 2024 Buenos Vecinos de Boquete. All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website.

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