Sowing Opportunities’ beginnings

Sowing Opportunities, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, formed in 2018 by Fern and Ginny Remedi-Brown of Malden. The idea came following the inquiry in 2011 of their then six-year-old daughter, Maya, who was adopted from Guatemala, after she asked to meet her “real mom.” Fern is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor and, understanding the need for biology, successfully located Maya’s biological mom in 2015 and then met her in Guatemala when Maya was 10.

Maya, age 10, and her biological mother, Olivia Gómez Guitz, in Antigua, Guatemala, July 2015

After our team saw the devastating poverty of their home in this extremely remote community, they first provided for the family. They soon learned that the entire village is impoverished and, in 2017, our team worked with the local municipal government to set up a 600,000 gallon capacity water tank and infrastructure for easy access at each of the 250 families’ homes. What is lacking is the energy to power it and filtration, so those remain future projects.

In 2020, Sowing Opportunities’ team began groceries deliveries to the entire village during the pandemic and ensuing hurricanes that caused up to 1.2 meters in flooding, and also set up a needs assessment with the families where we learned that many of the families were eager to learn agriculture in this rocky, unfarmable land to which they had been relegated during the 36-year genocide against the mostly Mayan indigenous people.

The agricultural project began in January 2022 when Sowing Opportunities’ expert agricultural engineer who had been trained in Brazil, Spain and Israel, worked in a pilot project of 30 families. The results were astounding: When the team returned in August, they saw that the produce had grown at an unexpectedly fast rate – instead of 3 harvests a year, they were producing 4 harvests a year – every 3 months they had a harvest! This means that the 30 families had each harvested nearly 400 lbs. – or a total of 6 tons – of produce in 2022!

In January 2023, our team began to work with a second village in this region that is so remote that most Guatemalans don’t know it exists. It’s important to mention that there are almost no resources or infrastructure, no tourists and no governmental or nongovernmental assistance. To get there from Antigua, Guatemala requires 12 hours of concentrated travel through difficult and dangerous mountainous terrain.

Sowing Opportunities’ second greenhouse project is in Salaguna, which has mostly women leaders because many of the men left to try to get to the U.S. and the women were left to care for their children. The women are working against all odds, some breastfeeding interspersed with working, others are elders, in order to feed their families.

One leader participant expressed in her native Q’eqchi’: “Now that we have greenhouses full of fresh vegetables, we have hope for the first time. This is a blessing in our lives. God bless you.”

There is no shortage of need and Sowing Opportunities’ agricultural engineer is well-known now in the region. One of the men who remained in the area – one of the 15% who can speak Spanish – told our project manager in March 2023: “You are giving us more than greenhouses. You are giving us more than we can see. You are giving us respect, which no one else has. We are forgotten by the world.”

Sowing Opportunities is moving forward: in January 2024, we will be working with three villages. Each time we take on a new village, we build. The first and second villages will continue to receive additional seedlings and to reinforce their prior training.

You can make your contribution in any of the following ways:

Ways to Donate:

www.sowingops.org

info@sowingops.org

(617) 791-3915

PayPal to fern.sowingops@gmail.com or go to bit.ly/3qTdfbK

Venmo to @Fern-Remedi-Brown

Check to: SOWING OPPORTUNITIES, INC.
21 Ivy Road
Malden, MA 02148

Google: Sowing Opportunities is registered with Google for any employees to donate directly!