Ethiopia

Do you remember when Ethiopia was dying? I was a in elementary school during those famines. The news was full of images of wasted skeletons walking through a barren landscape.

I remember raising money to send food to Ethiopia. The school I went to put down huge lengths of masking tape in the gymnasium and we brought in all of the coins we collected and laid them out on the tape on the floor. It had something to do with seeing how much we could raise.

Anyway. It’s about to happen again. Only this time it’s because aid organizations can afford to buy less than half of the food they could last year, because of rising food prices.

I wish I was reading Owlhaven last week. Because Mary was raising money to send to Ethiopia to help Dr. Mary feed people. I would have sent you all there. While her deadline for donating has passed, you can still follow her link and donate directly to Soddo Hospital.

But while we are talking about this…
Last week my husband met again with Scott Saben, the director of Floresta. We have something exciting in the works that I’ll probably tell you about in a few weeks that we have been getting his advice in. Floresta works at solving the root problems of hunger. They work at reforestation, at teaching local farmers sustainable farming techniques. They work at addressing the ways of thinking that are damaging to the long term health of communities as well. Almost all of their staff are trained national workers and their efforts are beginning to show fruit. Literally. If you have little extra and you want to address this crisis head on and help solve the problem not just treat the effects, I highly recommend Floresta to you for your consideration. No, they aren’t in Ethiopia yet. But they could be, with your help.