---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: The Urban Farming Guys <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 11:02 PM Subject: A Miracle Year for UFG! To: Michel <[email protected]> 2013 beyond our hopes and dreams! View this email in your browser<http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=7757f69a701cb06529ae119c4&id=9076619056&e=6951a855df> Unsubscribe<http://TheUrbanFarmingGuys.us5.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=7757f69a701cb06529ae119c4&id=649249fa70&e=6951a855df&c=9076619056> [image: image not displayed :( Please display images] Wow! We want to thank everyone for the amazing year of 2013. In 2013 we easily saw a *half million dollars* worth of mission progress, a 20 fold return on our resources this year! Your support helped to bring about transformation to one of the most blighted inner-city zip codes in the US into a now budding and soon to be thriving community. There is still a long journey ahead, but you will be amazed at what we accomplished together just this last year running on pure hope, bartered materials, and an army of volunteer help. See the story below and throw a victory fist in the air with us. [image: Solar Array 25 KW! Must see this image!] In 2013 we are now running on Solar Power! 90 - 120% of the power for our community gardens, CSA farm, fish hatchery, community workshop, interns bunkhouse, and office are powered by this 25kW system, We are now selling power back to the grid. Even better - this came at Zero Cost to UFG and provides an average value of $275 per month. [image: Our 2013 Interns: Mug Shot images] This year we launched our internship to over 20 beautiful people from 4 different countries. Our program has attracted everyone from a surgeon in Manhattan, to an anthropologist, and a refugee desiring to return to his homeland with the skills to begin rebuilding. This is an amazing ongoing experience. The culture here has been infused with a wonderful pool of talent and mission mindedness that has caused everyone involved to grow toward their destiny. We have also gained many new partners from within the Lykins community. [image: CSA Gardens image] We built and installed over 100 raised bed gardens in 2013. All without cash. We bartered our worm castings for soil and salvaged wood. We finished this lot within 2 weeks of purchasing it, a massive volunteer undertaking of love. It was 6 ft deep with weeds and trees when we obtained it. This project alone would have exceeded our entire cash inflow for the year if we would have hired it out. [image: Mobile Farmers market image.] We got this cargo truck up to par and have begun building a future mobile farmers market to help bring healthy food access to the urban core. We are now set up to accept food stamps to make healthy produce even more accessible to the existing food desert in the inner city. [image: You are missing out on this image!!!] Internship to ownership! This month we successfully wrote a grant on behalf of one of our long term interns to obtain ownership of this house and $20,000 to fix it up! This house is dead center to the 13 vacant lots we own and will be building community gardens on. This is all part of our Apprenticeship to Ownership program. We will deed some of these lots over to successful interns to help them start their own urban farms. [image: image crying :'(] We purchased 13 new lots in 2013 and got to work building value in the urban core. [image: 3000 Gallon Water Catchment !! image] Water! We built a massive rain collector that will catch over 45,000 gallons of rain each year for the community gardens. It catches over 1000 gallons for every inch of rain. Water flows down into the gutters we installed under the solar panels, then down into a sump tank and back up into 3000 gallons worth of holding tanks raised so they will give pressure coming back out to 3000 feet of drip systems in the community gardens and CSA gardens. Our vegetables will be happy for rain water. [image: Mexico barrelponics image you need to see] We built an Aquaponic fish farm at a beautiful orphanage in Mexico. Our team was able to raise their own funds individually to come and help. All of the project materials were funded by friends of the orphanage partnering with our project. [image: black gold] Here is a week's harvest (2000 lbs) of worm castings being shipped from our worm farm in our bat cave. This year we launched our first retail worm casting sales and sold out of our first product run in one day. We will soon have this fine organic fertilizer available online to help fundraise for our mission. [image: baby fish image] We hatched and sold thousands of Tilapia fingerlings to help fund our non profit's mission from within. By funding from within we are able to accomplish more, we sustain the long haul, we have real world knowledge to offer, and we are creating jobs... one of the most solid strategies for actually helping people!!!! [image: YESSSSS! image here] We planted 1000 tulips along 12th street this fall in an effort to bring a sense of hope and pride to the neighborhood we are working in. [image: its too bad you cant see this picture here :(] And finally in 2013 we did 1000 little things to invest into the infrastructure of the urban core including building a website for Lykins Neighborhood and keeping the after school art program going strong. We have hosted hundreds of neighbors and street people for community dinners at our base in many wonderful times of community building. We tripled attendance at our neighborhood meetings. And we have built a strong core of leadership on the ground among residents. It has become unstoppable. 2014 Outlook As of right now our 2014 budget is completely unfunded with no sign of help. Don't worry, this is nothing new to us. We have yet to be sponsored or receive any grants of our own from the many we continue to write thus far. We have 100% win record for grants we write for others, and 100% loss record for grants we write for UFG. Most organizations would be forced to shut down at this point. We will march on. We have invested our entire lives into building up the youth, the poor and the next generation. Like guerillas we will find a way to accomplish our mission even if we must fund it with the sunlight, dirt and rain around us. It has been a miracle this far. We are thankful for our faithful monthly supporters that we can count on giving about $500 cumulative per month. This is just about enough to keep the websites paid up and our email list managed. We were overjoyed to have some of our projects funded this last year by many one time small $5 and $10 donations. But the truth is, so much opportunity is being left behind in human potential due to a lack of resources. For every 20 full time volunteers that want to join us, we have to turn 18 away because we have a lack of financial resources, materials, computers, full time leadership etc. There is work to be done, raw resources to be cultivated, skills schools to be built, kids to be mentored, businesses to be formed, a village to be cultivated out of the rubble. Please call your friends in high places and tell them that we exist! *Please consider making a donation. <http://TheUrbanFarmingGuys.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7757f69a701cb06529ae119c4&id=f242539467&e=6951a855df>* The Urban Farming Guys is a non profit public charity 501c3 that exists to help build sustainable communities in the most difficult places on earth. Huge Matching Gift! To kick of the start of the year. The same person who gave us a matching donation in July has again offered to donate up to $7,000 matched by January 15th. YAY! So for every dollar you give, he will make it $2. If we can collectively raise $7000, he will make it $14,000. Help us begin to make 2014 the first year that our budget is funded. We need $80,000 this year to effectively organize and utilize the raw resources and opportunity around us to our most effective potential. Without your help, we will be leaving behind approximately a million dollars worth of value and ability to inspire and empower more good in 2014. *Please consider making a donation. <http://TheUrbanFarmingGuys.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7757f69a701cb06529ae119c4&id=f3cd14bed2&e=6951a855df>*The Urban Farming Guys is a non profit public charity 501c3 Big thanks to our top supporters this last year. Geoff Coventry, KAT Nurseries, Patrick Painting and Siding, Don Markle, Grantham University, JR Albert, & David Maenle for keeping our computers running when we cant afford to fix them. And finally so many of you who are rooting us onward! 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