After 6 months of work distributing coffee trees, digging holes, carrying compost and planting trees in collaboration with dozens of local Nepali families, today we announce that we have completed our goal to plant more than 5,000 trees this summer. We are very excited and super grateful to our donors, supporters, staff, and local farmers for making this possible!

Kumari (far left) and Greg “Shiva” Robinson (far right), our Agriculture Program Coordinators, walk with Anil Tamang (center left) and Aiscing Tamang (center right) after a full morning of work - carrying baskets or “dhokos” of compost, digging hole… — Kumari (far left) and Greg “Shiva” Robinson (far right), our Agriculture Program Coordinators, walk with Anil Tamang (center left) and Aiscing Tamang (center right) after a full morning of work - carrying baskets or “dhokos” of compost, digging holes, managing forest land, and planting coffee trees.

For the last 6+ months, we were also fundraising actively through our “Planting Trees During COVID-19” fundraiser that allowed us to keep our Nepali team employed and at work supporting families across the Himalayas. We raised $23,766 in total from 170 donors. What a success! Thank you to each of you for supporting our work, and for keeping Conscious Impact alive during these challenging times. So far, we have raised enough to plant and care for 4,750, but there are still 250 trees left to adopt if you would like one!

Kumari Bomjan, Agriculture Program Coordinator for Conscious Impact, takes another 30 baby coffee trees from our greenhouse to be carried to a local farm for planting. Photo by Jonathan H. Lee

Our agriculture team worked tirelessly all summer to make this happen. Led by Kumari Bomjan and Greg “Shiva” Robinson, we loaded baskets, crates and trucks full of coffee saplings from our community greenhouse in Takure to be transported and distributed to community members in Takure, Bimire, Nawalpur and dozens of other local towns. We worked alongside 160+ total famers this monsoon season to plant the 5250 trees. Each tree once mature, in 3-5 years, can produce annually up to 10 kilograms of coffee, red cherry, and more than 25,000 USD per year in total for local families’ livelihoods.

Bala Krishna and friends load 750 coffee trees into the back of a truck to carry to their village called Pokhare, about 1.5 hours walk from Takure, for planting. Photo by Jonathan H. Lee

WHO ARE THE FARMERS?

Ketcharnath and Bodi Mai Dahal, live 40 minutes below Takure in the village of Bimire. These two inspiring and active farmers have 10 existing mature coffee trees (8 years old) that produce around 50 kilograms of coffee cherry annually. Through our Tree Cultivation Program, we are working with farmers like these two to improve their cultivation of coffee, so that they can get more fruit each year. Additionally, this year a team of volunteers and staff went down to plant 35 new coffee trees with Bodi Mai & Ketcharnath along with their visiting grandchildren from Kathmandu. Ketcharnath says he is really excited to hopefully pass over his coffee farm to a grandchild someday and looks forward to increasing his income with coffee.

Shobhana Tamang lives in the village of Duduwa Kharka. She had not planted coffee before October 2019, when she agreed to trial coffee on some of her forest land. Shobhana is a local government leader, she is hardworking and active in the community to support positive social change on various fronts. After planting an initial 30 trees in 2019, she was inspired to lead her community to plant more. Not only did she inspire 5 other farmers to plant trees this year, but she also planted an additional 50 coffee trees. Carries heavy baskets of compost the whole work shift alongside our team. We are so grateful to work alongside community members like Shobhana.

As we celebrate the completion of a 6-month fundraiser, we also want to honor everyone that made a donation. This work would not be possible without the support of the 170 people that in total contributed $23,766 to help us plant 5250 coffee trees, 750 fruit trees like citrus and hundreds more native forest trees. Thank you so much from our entire team! 100% of the money donated goes directly to supporting local farmers. This was our most successful tree planting season yet, and we look forward to more!

Left to Right: Narayan Bhattarai (staff), Greg Robinson (agriculture program lead), Kumari Bomjan (staff), and 4 farmers from the village of Pokhare picking up their 750+ coffee and other fruit trees for planting.

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS.

Narayan Bhattarai, Lead Community Organizer for Conscious Impact, makes a final count of coffee saplings loaded into the truck. 750! Photo by Jonathan H. Lee

We Did It! 5250 Coffee Trees Planted

WHO ARE THE FARMERS?

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS.