Connecting With The Eden Projects

Yesterday I spoke with The Eden Projects and am pleased to report that they have willingly agreed to provide me with images and their logo for use on our upcoming website!  This is a major advancement, and will help to give context to our customers, showing the important work that their dollars are accomplishing.

I had a great conversation with Rick, The Eden Project's Haiti coordinator, and he gave me an update on that particular project.  He reports that they have made contact with numerous hillside farmers, many of whom remember the forests that have disappeared and are willing to offer person-hours to help care for the forests that will be planted.  The farmers have offered large amounts of land to be converted back to trees.  This buy-in is essential to the success of these shoe-string projects.  Community involvement keeps costs to a bare minimum.  With involvement comes a sense of ownership.  And with ownership comes lasting change.

One way that The Eden Projects encourages participation in Haiti is by implementing a Permaculture-style "food forest" model on many of these Haitian farms.  The Eden Projects will plant understory and canopy trees that produce food, thus serving multiple purposes for the communities.  As a backyard gardener and a Permaculture enthusiast, I am pleased that they are using this model in Haiti.  The trees will provide both economic and environmental benefits to this challenged island nation and, because they offer easily recognized value, the forests should be well cared for.

We are extremely proud to be supporting this great organization.  Every ten cents they receive can, through their innovative network, plant one tree.  Our future customers, will be part of this movement.  It is our goal to provide value every step of the way.  It's not about getting rich, it is about bringing back the trees and the ethic of buying, healthy, heirloom American-made products.

The margins in retail are slim.  It is my responsibility to find a range of products that can, on average, produce a minimum of $2.20 cents of net profit.  To someone who has never run a store, this might sound easy. But after all of the expenses involved, sometimes one is fortunate to break even in a retail business.  But if The Eden Projects can work miracles planting trees, why should we be satisfied with narrow profits?  Ideally, we will donate much more to reforestation efforts.  We would love to donate $22 or even $44 per item sold.  So, behind the scenes, we are working on innovative ways of identifying (and creating) valuable, collectible, unique products that will be exciting enough to bring in much larger margins -- especially with the knowledge that our profits are going to such tremendously important projects.

Stay tuned!
Karl

Plant22.com
It's about the future