Wren members have raised over $1,000,000 for tree planting in East Africa!

Just the gist

Short on time? Here's what you need to know this month:

• 🌲 Over 128,000 farmers have planted over 23,000,000 trees. In total, the trees on this project have captured over 9,000,000 tons of CO2!
• 📈 Wren members have raised over $1,000,000 for this project!
• 🧑‍🌾 In this update we hear from Jane Kanja, a leader on the project who's been working with them for over 15 years!

This is an update from our Community Tree Planting project. For more updates like this one, follow Wren on Twitter and Instagram.

Wren members raise over a million dollars for East African farmers!

This funding goes directly to farmers in East Africa, who use it to plant millions of trees. These trees provide shelter from the sun, windbreaks from extreme weather, food for their communities—all while sequestering hundreds of thousands of tons of CO2.

On behalf of the entire Wren team, thank you for your support 🧡

Trees provide more than just climate benefits: they offer food, shelter, and more!

There are almost 95,000 farmers from this project all over Kenya,  who together have planted almost 13M trees!  Most of these farmers are subsistence farmers who rely on whatever they plant - that is the only food they have to pick to take to their kitchens as dinner or lunch.

The farms where they plant their crops and trees are small, about 1 acre on average.  The project's farmers in Kenya choose the trees and crops to plant on their farms.  The trees may provide fruits and nuts for the farmer's family or for selling to make more money.  The deadfall from the trees can be used as firewood.

Trees also can be planted around the farmer's house to be a windbreak to keep the roof on the house or the clothes on the clothes line.  Farmers plant trees around the farm boundaries.  The trees are also planted to improve farm soil and stop erosion.

Meet Jane Kanja, single mom, and 15-year veteran of the project!

Jane Kanja has been working for our project parnter, TIST, since 2005 as a  Farmer in Small Group Kaumbuthu A, in Meru, Kenya.  Jane quickly became a leader on the project—beginning as a trainer for new farmers, then as a quantifier who measures the CO2 captured in trees, and later as a mentor for new trainers.  As she grew into her leadership role, Jane became an auditor of the other Cluster Servants' data.  In 2012, she joined the Kenya Operational Leadership Council, and she currently serves as Leader of TIST Kenya!

As leader, Jane is responsible for running large cluster meetings with representatives from dozens of small groups of farmers, and making sure each small group receieves their carbon offset payments. As a single mother of a 22-year old son, she knows how to juggle multiple responsibilities and wear many hats!

Every four months, the council elect a new leader and co-leader to run TIST Kenya.  This practice gives every member a chance to lead, prevents any one person from dominating discussion, and teaches appreciation of the challenges of leadership.

That's all for this update! As always, thanks for your support. 🧡

—the Wren team