2022 was an amazing year. People came together like never before to support MATTER's mission of launching projects to improve communities. Collaborating with our 450 donors, 75 corporate partners, 48 community partners, and 9,000 incredible volunteers, we impacted 3.2 million people this year! Here are a few highlights of what we accomplished together: MATTERbox 75 [...]
On this Give to the Max Day, we’re kicking off the next phase of our Chaya campaign in Zimbabwe aimed at empowering women to feed their families, through growing Chaya and community. Our goal is to raise $50,000 toward the establishment of ten women’s farm co-ops around the country. The $5,000 per site cost includes [...]
Today is Earth Day, a day set aside to commit ourselves to be better stewards of this amazing planet we live on. It’s also the perfect day to celebrate the incredible Chaya tree and its impact on the people and environment in Zimbabwe. We’ve already told you about the enormous nutritional benefits of the Chaya [...]
Last November MATTER launched the Chaya Tree Story, the vision of donors Sandi Young and Susan Block, with the goal of planting 15,000 Chaya trees in Zimbabwe to increase the health of communities through Chaya's nutrition benefits. Because of the amazing generosity of our donors and supporters, all 15,000 trees are now in the ground! Training [...]
Zimbabwe is suffering from one of the country’s worst droughts in 40 years. For the women of Zimbabwe who are responsible to grow the food that feeds their families, hopelessness is setting in. Their small garden plots are parched and barren; their livestock dying. In a country once considered the breadbasket of Africa, 650,000 of [...]
On August 6, 2020, MATTER lost one of our dear friends and dedicated volunteers, Eddy Cyphers. Eddy became part of the MATTER family over three years ago when he reached out to us hoping to help with our agriculture projects. With his extensive experience in farming and travel, and his love for people, Eddy quickly [...]
For small chicken farmers in Senegal, the proverbial question is not, “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” It’s “What will come first to kill our chickens?” Tragically, Senegalese farmers lose half of their flock to disease, stress, heat and a myriad of other conditions every year. As an important source of nutrition and income, it’s essential small farmers learn a better way to farm their chickens that is more productive [...]
They say it takes a village to raise a child. At MATTER we understand the concept of “village” well. In fact, we rely on it. It takes a village, oftentimes a global village, to nurture life-changing projects from the infancy of initial ideas to their activation in the community. A recent project in the West [...]
Here in the Midwest the growing season is definitely over. The fields have been harvested and are now sitting barren and brown, waiting for the cover of snow to blanket them until spring. But it’s another story entirely in Zimbabwe. With temperatures in the 90’s and humidity at 90%, their growing season is in full swing. There's [...]
By Chris Newhouse, MATTER's Agricultural Program Director. From July 7-13th, MATTER facilitated the second Regenerate Senegal agricultural conference in partnership with the Gorgui Dieng Foundation, the Beer-Sheba Project, and Minneapolis based Terra Ingredients. Several international experts in a variety of agricultural fields traveled to Senegal to spend the week with about 50 farmers from Senegal, Liberia [...]