COVID-19 has been a serious matter for our communities since the outbreak began to spread around the world. From the start, our team has been concerned by the lack of medical resources in the places where we work. We consulted with local health experts and our own international partners to
You are building resilient communities during COVID-19 in Thailand and the DRC
COVID-19 has been a serious matter for our communities since the outbreak began to spread around the world. From the start, our team has been concerned by the lack of medical resources in the places where we work. We consulted with local health experts and our own international partners to
How our international partners are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic
Many of you may be wondering how the virus impacts our international partners? The effects of this pandemic will be severe if they infiltrate communities like the ones where we work, as infrastructure is extremely limited. Many subsistence farmers are often immunocompromised. Please pray against its spread.
We have also been
A message from our CEO regarding Covid-19
Dear Friend,
This is strange and difficult time and, in many ways, we are heading into uncharted territory. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for your partnership, to let you know how COVID-19 is affecting our work around the world, and finally, to ask how we might
We’re Resurrection People, After All!
The following is a letter from our Creative Director, Philippe Lazaro, on what happens when a global pandemic runs into Easter- a day where we celebrate resurrection.
What a month it’s been. To echo a Tweet by Andy Crouch I read, “Honestly, I hadn’t planned on giving up this much
Restoring civility is a necessary step towards sustainability
A divisive social climate contributes to an unsustainable global climate
It’s a presidential election year in the United States, and unsurprisingly political tensions and anxieties run high. There has been no shortage of words about the way our world is extremely polarized and divided. Spend more than a small amount
I’m concerned about climate. Why should I support a Christian environmental organization?
“The faithful have a long tradition of ministering to and seeking justice for the most vulnerable and providing the action we need to achieve a just and healthy world. As such, the faithful are leading on climate solutions today.”
–Kara Ball, Blessed Tomorrow
Plant With Purpose is a Christian environmental
What is regenerative agriculture and why is it so exciting?
“Do you want to know the most exciting thing about regenerative agriculture? It’s the word “regenerative.” It means we actually have the ability to bring seemingly dead, practically infertile soil back to life!”
–Sheryl Karas, Center for Regenerative Agriculture Systems at CSU Chico
Excitement around regenerative agriculture, sometimes called regenerative
Eco-Discipleship: How God calls us to learn from nature
We often overlook the way nature teaches us about God
It’s not uncommon to hear people explain how a little time in nature helps people feel closer to God. But the idea of spending time in nature as a spiritual discipline can still be startling for many people.
“I used
Who gets left out of environmental storytelling?
Environmental storytelling has often failed to focus on the communities that are most impacted
The people most vulnerable to climate change are those living in the poorest areas.
This has been a consistent area of focus for Plant With Purpose. It is the reason why we work in the places
Loving your neighbor means protecting their ecosystem
The most important command about how we treat each other is clear: Love
“This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two.”
–Matthew 22:36-40
Christians widely recognize that Love is central
Faith, culture, and identity shape environmental efforts around the planet
What moves people to actually care for the environment at a local level?
Duang Dee lives in Thailand, though he himself is Karen. The Karen are an ethinic group in Southeast Asia that do not have their own formal country. Instead, they live between Thailand and Myanmar. Historically, the areas
Want to help provide clean water? Protect the watershed!
Dirty water is one of the biggest hazards to humans around the world
Every year, about 3.5 million people around the world will die from unclean water. About two thirds of them will be children. This is the equivalent of a large commercial airplane crashing every single hour.
For those
Family values and environmental values aren’t exclusive. They actually overlap a lot.
So why does it often feel like family values are a different set of interests than environmental values?
More likely than not, this is based only on outward appearances. The thought of family values might make one think of a warm home, and the thought of environmental values might make
Welcoming the Stranger: the Congolese community we could all learn from
Their past was riddled with conflict. Their future is about security and abundance.
Nobody would consider Kakumba an easy place to live. Simply getting to it takes extensive climbing up steep hills and mountain sides, on trails that are often inaccessible due to rain… or worse.
It wasn’t long ago
There’s no such thing as a sustainable trend
Environmental concern is urgent. It is also timeless.
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, wow, this sustainability trend sure is taking off, isn’t it?
You’d have good reason for thinking that. Fidelity, the investment giant declared last year as the year “sustainability went mainstream” declaring that “professional and private investors
Is bigger always better when it comes to forests? Not always.
We hear a lot about the importance of preserving the Earth’s major rainforests. What about forested areas that aren’t as vast?
The Amazon. The Australian brush. The Indonesian palm rainforests. The Congo Rainforest and Basin. A lot of these major rainforests are familiar names to people concerned about the fight
Do alarming messages do more harm to environmental campaigns in the long run?
Is that even the right question to ask?
“The world was just issued a 12 year ultimatum on climate change”
“A terrifying look at the consequences of climate change”
“Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’”
The above headlines ran on The Smithsonian, The Economist, and The Guardian, respectively.
Climate Change in the Eastern Congo: A current look at impact
Recent reports outline the extreme vulnerability of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to climate change.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) can be one of the hardest places to live. Widespread hunger, the outbreak of epidemics, and political instability have led the UNDP to rank the central African
Generosity and partnership make all the difference
Our work over the past year is a testament to your contribution.
Plant With Purpose has just unveiled the fiscal year 2019 edition of its Annual Report. The report is a summary of program results, successes, and outputs over the past fiscal year. As a publication, it serves as a
Are we missing out on one of our planet’s greatest lifelines?
A group of people 800 million strong are critical to solving our environmental crisis.
Our planet is undoubtedly at a critical moment right now. Various reports show that close to a million species are at risk of extinction. Meanwhile, 2030 has been projected as the date by which changes to
Four things to remember when environmental issues seem overwhelming
How can we prevent a mass extinction event? Can we remove enough carbon from the atmosphere to avoid irreversible climate change? Can we protect and restore the forests we have left?
It can be so easy to get overwhelmed by the daunting nature of protecting our planet. Maybe it isn’t
The danger of drought: How Thailand’s farmers are coping with an unending dry season
The rains aren’t coming when they should
Weeks go by and Thailand moves further into what is supposed to be its rainy season. Except it hasn’t rained. The people still wait. Especially the farmers, for whom the arrival of rain is needed to feed their families and to bring in
What are the most important sustainability goals for the 2020s?
It’s a new year and a new decade at that. The beginning of the 2020s puts us at a crucial spot in trying to address some of our planet’s biggest environmental issues.
The decisions that we make over the next decade will have an impact on our planet. This impact
The Spiritual Roots: What Makes our Giving Tuesday Campaign a little different
We believe in looking at root causes- including spiritual roots
As an organization, we’ve long held the belief that in order to solve big problems, you need to look at root causes. A lot of energy is spent treating the symptoms of problems rather than the actual problems themselves. If
Help Us Support 4,500 Farmers Restoring Creation
This Giving Tuesday, we’re loving God by loving Creation
One thing we hold in high value at Plant With Purpose is our identity as a Christian environmental organization. We believe that our environmental care truly is an act of worship. By being caretakers of creation, we are brought back to
What does it take to be thankful?
Imagine what gratitude looks like at its most intense level
There’s no real way to measure who the most grateful person in the world must be, but can you imagine what life must look like for that person? A deep appreciation for practically everything and an overflow of joy towards
The Preeteen President
Empowerment groups help both people and the planet
Wherever Plant With Purpose works, participants join empowerment groups. These groups support environmental restoration efforts with economic development through loans and savings. As community members save their extra income in shares and lend money to each other to generate further income, poverty
Children deserve way better
Children are the most affected by our environmental choices
People widely recognize the fact that children have the most to gain or lose based on how we treat our environment. In fact, providing a better life for children and grandchildren was the most frequently cited answer in a survey of
Protecting God’s Creation
What motivates Christians to care about climate?
This is a question many have asked, from both within and outside the faith. While people in general may have all kinds of reasons for concern- from uncertainty towards the future to concern for the poor, how this is influenced by people’s spiritual
Why is Bok Chee smiling so much?
Bok Chee radiates joy and contentment
In his village of Huay Lu Luang, Bok Chee stands out for his easygoing nature and warm smile. It isn’t uncommon to find him joking with his neighbors or playing with his granddaughter in between taking care of the family farm.
For most people
Memorable quotes from Season One of Grassroots
We’re celebrating a successful first season of Plant With Purpose’s Grassroots Podcast! While we’re on a little break right now, feel free to go back and listen to any of our past episodes here! And if you’re not totally sure where to start, here are a few quotes from our
Time to tell ourselves a new story about the environment
Our survival depends on a new story
When it comes to the environment, it appears more and more obvious that we need new ways of doing familiar things. The behaviors and habits that have gotten us to where we are will not sustain us for where we want to be.
Poverty’s Last Frontier
We’ve made significant amounts of progress against poverty in recent times
When we look at things going wrong in the world, things like poverty and injustice, we must remember that it doesn’t have to be this way. God did not create the world intending for poverty and human suffering, and
The Gold Mine of Local Ingenuity
What happens when the line gets blurry between sustainability and marketing?
Some of our planet’s most needed solutions are ready to be unearthed. They aren’t waiting to be discovered in the labs of our top research institutions. They aren’t waiting for tech entrepreneurs to figure things out. They’re in the
Worthwhile questions to ask about the things around us
Part of living a more sustainable lifestyle includes rethinking our relationship with the physical world. Sometimes that means reconsidering the importance of the forests in Ethiopia, or the trees in our own neighborhood. Other times, it means reconsidering the physical objects in front of us- our drinkware, the clothes on
Global Changes Show Us What is Possible
It can be easy to only notice the bad things going on in the world, especially when it comes to environmental issues. While it’s important to stay concerned and connected to the planet’s challenges, it’s equally important to stay tuned in to the stories of hope. These stories remind us
Food on the Table: The Story of Messoyel
Haiti has faced challenges year after year.
Haiti is no stranger to the hopelessness that comes from generations of government changes and promises, with little to show for it. Even when big changes are made to better the country, small farmers like Messoyel often are the last people to be
How to prioritize listening to locals
One extremely high value at Plant With Purpose is the empowerment of locals. We are simply partners. Doing so requires a spirit of collaboration that goes against many norms in the world of international charity. Here are a few of the shifts we seek to further local empowerment.
We see
Farmer Field Schools: The Sack Garden
At Plant With Purpose, we aim to equip rural farmers with sustainable agriculture skills. These skills help them become resilient against hunger and environmental problems. One challenge in Tanzania is the lack of space for farming activities on many people’s property. A solution is the creation of sack gardens. Here’s
Knowledge Empowers
Empowerment often takes the form of learning
When it comes to community development, you can give away food. You can give clothing. You can give scholarships, or water, or trees. These are all things that are all deeply needed in many parts of the world, and there are many times
Right Now, Somewhere On Earth
Attention to our environmental condition often fades in and out. Things like news coverage or public concern may come and go, which sometimes makes it easy to forget that our ecological story is constantly unfolding. Here are some things that are happening right now.
Families are feeling the burden of
More Ways to Reduce Food Waste
Imagine something that wastes seeds, water, nutrients, financial resources, working hours, soil, and land space, all while generating a large amount of methane. Are you thinking of food waste? If so, you’d be accurate.
In fact, the resource exhaustion generated by food waste is responsible for close to ten percent
Paddling 22 miles for Plant With Purpose
22 miles on a paddleboard is no easy feat!
Will Allen and Emily Bark will be paddling 22 miles from Catalina to Palos Verdes to support Plant With Purpose this month! They have chosen to raise money to plant trees in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of Plant With
When Nations Get Busy Planting Trees
For over 30 years, Plant With Purpose has advocated for planting trees as a simple but powerful response to the environmental challenges that our planet faces.
Swiss researcher Tom Crowther speaks about planting trees urgently. As far as climate solutions go, “it is available now,” he says. “It is the
A Generational Promise
An investment in the environment is a promise to future generations
“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”
You might see that quote attributed to Les Brown or to Warren Buffett. While the author of the phrase is unclear, its significance is
Is This Sustainable or Is This Just Marketing?
What happens when the line gets blurry between sustainability and marketing?
Over the past decade, clothing giant H&M has received much criticism for the company’s environmental impact and the working conditions of its manufacturers. After the fatal collapse of a factory in Bangladesh killed 1138 workers in 2013, H&M became
My faith has come from difficult moments
Sometimes it’s the hardest moments of life that produce the most growth
If we were to list out the most meaningful things we’ve done throughout our life and then make a second list featuring the most difficult things we’ve ever done, I suspect we’d find a good amount of overlap.
When it comes to the environment, is there a case for hope?
How hopeful do you feel when it comes to the environment
“I’ll be honest, sometimes it can feel like there are many reasons why finding hope is difficult,” explained Plant With Purpose executive director Scott Sabin.
Scott’s assessment feels very relatable. Between the rampant threats to places like the
A Village Homecoming
Displacement affects about 10.7 Million people in Africa
Displacement refers to somebody who has left their home due to force or a lack of safety, in most cases, conflict. This term differs from refugee status, since refugees are technically defined by crossing a national border.
When regional conflicts came to
The Role of Empathy in Environmental Protection
Terence Lester says that “to really understand something, we often need to experience it for ourselves or at least hear the story of someone who has experienced it.”
This captures the importance of empathy when it comes to problem solving.
And when it comes to understanding our environment and
Rolling Up Your Sleeves for Creation Care
Perhaps you’ve been with us on the journey of environmental restoration for some time. You care deeply. You often look at the big picture of what environmental challenges look like across the globe. But for those wanting to get more involved, the big picture can sometimes look too broad.
If
One Planet, Many Neighbors
July 11 marks World Population Day, a day marked to raise awareness of issues related to world population. Though this is not the most well known commemoration, its relationship to the environment makes it worth exploring further.
So, what is World Population Day and where did it come from?
The
What you’ve made possible
In some ways it still feels like we just celebrated a new year, but then you realize: it’s halfway over. Time goes by like that sometimes, especially when you’re engaged in deep and immersive work. Right now is a good time to celebrate the work you’ve made possible for Plant
Here’s how to listen to and support the Grassroots Podcast
The Grassroots Podcast is officially live!
As of July 2, Plant With Purpose’s premiere podcast is finally live.
Whether you get your podcasts on Spotify, Apple, Google, Overcast, Breaker, Anchor, Pocket Casts, or RadioPublic, you’ll be able to listen to our new show for free!
We are committed
Milestones and Making Plans
It’s the end of a fiscal year for Plant With Purpose, and this one leaves us with a lot to celebrate.
This year saw the 30 millionth tree planted by Plant With Purpose, and that is a very big cause for celebration.
Each tree plays a major role in environmental
Keep making small improvements
For Jing, the road to a better life seemed daunting.
Jing lived with her husband, Tan, in the hills of Northern Thailand. They endured much together, and cared for one another, even at times when this was very difficult.
“Our family had no money in savings,” she said to describe
It Threatens the Most Vulnerable
The impact of climate change and degradation is not felt evenly.
Environmental degradation is a cruel phenomenon. It has the harshest effect on people who already suffer a great deal: the world’s poor. Especially the rural poor. While most common images of poverty depict something urban, poverty is mostly rural.
Breaking Ground in the Borderlands
If you’ve been to the Dominican Republic, chances are, you saw the eastern part of the country, either the coast or the area around the capital of Santo Domingo.
Statistically, these are the places most visitors go.
Far fewer visitors go west. If you have, you may have more
Farming helps ex-combatants build a life of peace in Colombia
A few weeks ago, Plant With Purpose Creative Director Philippe Lazaro took a trip to Colombia with Latin America Program Officer Milmer Martinez. While Colombia is not an active Plant With Purpose program, the trip was a valuable learning opportunity and a chance to explore how environmental restoration intersects with
The Roots of Everything
There’s no shortage of problems in the world to solve.
As a student, Philippe Lazaro knew he wanted to apply his international interests to help solve some of these problems, but getting started was a journey in and of itself.
A slew of internships and volunteer opportunities took him around
Introducing the Plant With Purpose GrassRoots Podcast!
Here’s fun news- we’re launching a podcast!
Over the past few months, our team has been arranging interviews, talking to fascinating individuals, and reflecting on our own experiences on the journey of environmental restoration all for the purpose of putting together a moving and informative podcast experience.
The show will
A better environment benefits all
Rio Garza once suffered from the environmental conditions that plague many rural communities around the world.
Problems like deforestation, poverty, and soil erosion create difficult lives for people living in rural areas around the world. This is the reason why rural poverty remains a challenge to eradicate, even though the
Humility: What it is, What it isn’t
Humility is an increasingly underappreciated value in today’s culture. In a world where personal branding, hyperbole, and debate are highly visible, humility seems to be a forgotten art. In spite of this, there is something truly refreshing about being in the presence of somebody who is sincerely and genuinely humble.
Shoulder to Shoulder: The importance of solidarity
Solidarity is an act of hope.
Solidarity means moving in the direction of pain in the world, standing with those who are suffering and taking up their cause as if it were your own. Doing so is both an act of hope and an imitation of Christ.
Vitor Westhelle once
EarthX: Changing lives from Dallas to the DRC
Plant With Purpose and EarthX were Earth Week partners.
EarthX is an environmental forum where citizens, educators, business leaders, students, nonprofits, and leaders can take action towards a more sustainable future by exploring a variety of solutions. Plant With Purpose came for the second year in a row, connecting with
Earth Day celebrates a chance to love your neighbor
One of our greatest purposes is to love our neighbor as ourselves
Many of us are familiar with the two greatest commandments, as found in Matthew 22:
To love God with all our hearts, minds, and strength, and,
To love our neighbor as ourselves
While each of us
Why is it sometimes difficult to take action that helps the planet
We’re constantly in the process of encouraging people to serve our global neighbors by caring for the environment. We’ll be honest, however. Sometimes it can be difficult to see where to get started. There are so many possible choices, but how do you get started? Perhaps you’ve gone from never
This Earth Day, help restore Creation
The Wonder of Creation is still good.
The Story of Creation goes something like this:
God made beautiful things. He appreciated and admired them, and called them good.
We messed up. We invited sin, degradation, death, and disease to enter the picture.
Out of Love, Christ came. His death and
God is very much alive
Has God ever felt quiet to you?
God is always present and near. But that doesn’t mean it always feels that way. Throughout the course of one’s lifetime, there may be long stretches of silence and seasons that feel unusually dry.
Sometimes, our relationship with God can feel like going
Step into a savings group meeting
What is a savings group?
Sometimes called savings groups, sometimes called Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), these are savings-led microfinance groups that work to combat poverty. For those unable to benefit from a formal financial institution, these groups offer participants an opportunity to save, grow their money, and take
Remember the Wonder of Creation
God created the earth and declared it good.
And it truly is good.
If you’ve ever found yourself amazed by the beauty of a National Forest, reenergized by a weekend spent hiking, or surprised by how intricately the human body is designed, it’s hard to disagree.
That’s not to say
We can reduce water waste
Whether we realize it or not, water plays a major role in our lives. Think about your personal morning routine. Maybe it includes taking a shower, brushing your teeth, or preparing an omelet for breakfast. All of these activities revolve around water. We use water constantly. But are we using
A STORYteller’s notes
A couple weeks ago, our team had the opportunity to go to STORY Gathering in Nashville, Tennessee. As far as the conference goes, it’s so unlike other conferences that it’s a bit hard to describe. In short, it’s a place for people who believe that a well-told story can change