Thank you for helping us make 2021 an incredible year
Friends,
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I’d like to thank you for supporting The Fly Fishing Collaborative. You’ve helped make 2021 an incredible year. Together, as we continue to funnel our passions to create sustainable solutions to poverty and human trafficking, we’re building a better future for countless lives.
Please take a look below at some of this past year’s accomplishments and raise a glass high to the amazing work all of us in the FFC community have accomplished together.
Gales Point, Belize
We’re very proud to share with you that this year we completed a three-phase Aquaponic Farm project in Gales Point, Belize. Designed to support the needs of an entire community, the Aquaponic Farm in Gales Point boasts our most intricate and sophisticated design to date. Throughout the year, we launched multiple teams to carry out the careful construction of each specific phase. At the center of this Farm is an aquaculture center; currently growing 400 fish and a greenhouse expected to yield 400-600 heads of lettuce per week! Lettuce is already growing and being sold – a testament to this farm becoming a sustainable income source for the community. As an extra benefit, the rich byproduct produced within the aquaculture center is being recycled and used to fertilize a soil farm. For the village, this soil farm serves as a free food pantry for those in the village who need it most.
Gales Point has suffered the tragic effects of joblessness and poverty for several decades and this Farm is an incredible instrument to bring lasting change to the community. We’re celebrating success!
Global Farm Support
Although COVID continued to limit travel and tie up some of our best-laid plans, we focused on optimizing some of our previous builds and learning more about the progress of our other partners. As such we were able to sponsor one of our former farms in Thailand for a year’s worth of operating expenses to ensure that their impact can continue to be felt in the community they are serving and beyond. In addition, as FFC Aquaponic Farms programs continue to develop around the world, growing in our ability to provide ongoing support to Farm beneficiaries is front and center. Farm manager training, data collecting, quality control, and educational tools to market and sell produce are all important factors to ensure the long-term success of each build. Armed with your generous support, we were able to grow FFC’s staff infrastructure this year by contracting Alyson Wells as our Farm Specialist. Alyson has been hard at work deepening relationships with past farm managers, creating systems for data collection of water quality, production yields, harvest yields, as well as designing and coordinating future farm builds. Her input and skill set is, and will be, of great value to the team going forward as we take on larger and more complex builds to serve the needs of our partners globally.
Local Initiative
This year we've also been working with our local justice-based partners coming alongside some great local organizations to join in the fight against domestic trafficking, specifically by contributing to resources for survivor intervention and advocacy. I cannot express how massive the need (and therefore the opportunity) is in Portland and in our own local neighborhoods.
Thanks to our partnership with Safety Compass, a Portland-based Advocacy group, and the generosity of our Sponsors, Partner guides, and all the good-hearted people that support FFC, we were able to grow our Advocacy Sponsorship Program significantly. Every $2,000 that goes towards FFC's ASP can provide a trauma-informed advocate for a trafficking survivor for an entire year. This advocacy provides survivors with a specialist from Safety Compass who can offer crisis response, safety planning, law enforcement interview accompaniment, resource referrals, court accompaniment, case management, and mental health referrals. This is life-giving work.
This year, as a result of our year-end campaign, we reached our goal of sponsoring 20 survivors for an entire year. This is a great accomplishment that doesn’t just give survivors help for a year, but provides essential tools for lifelong change. Thank you all for helping create sustainable solutions for those who need them most.
We cannot express how meaningful your support is - not only to our little organization - but to the villages, homes, and communities around the world that we get to impact together. In this year especially your generosity spurred on our creativity as we found ways to make an impact and we could not have done it without you. So from all of us at FFC, Thank you, and have a blessed New Year.
Bucky Buchstaber (Executive Director & Co-founder)