The CacaoNica cooperative grows the good stuff: organic, fair trade, Rainforest Alliance-certified chocolate that you see in the fancy, high-end stores in the US and Europe. But getting stuff that melts in your mouth to market from 42 rural, hard-to reach hamlets surrounding Waslala, Nicaragua is quite the endeavor. 

Click here to help us raise $7000 to buy solar panels for 10 Nica cacao farmers to get their product to market!

Every 15 days or so, the CacaoNica project sends a truck to collect the newly grown beans, communicating by phone through WhatsApp. Coordinating the pickup is no easy task in such remote areas with few roads. Without a charged phone, producers run the risk of missing a pickup. Solar power changes everything.

That’s why, this summer, we’re launching a $7K “Virtual Shipment” campaign to lighten these farmer’s load. $7K will power 10 homes with solar panels. Also, with solar power at home, children don’t have to study by candlelight. Families can listen to music or watch a video without worrying about losing power and missing the next cacao pickup.

Click here to donate to get solar panels to get the cacao beans to market.

You may remember when we’d fill a 40’ shipping container twice a year to send requested things to our partners. Times change, so our partners now access funds to make purchases of items we can no longer send by sea. Last year, our virtual shipment raised $10K for Inhijambia to purchase back-to-school items for 100 kids. 

This year’s “virtual shipment” of solar panels is dedicated to our long-time shipment driver, Mike McCabe, who passed away earlier this year. Mike made our 70+ mutual aid shipments to Nicaragua a reality for 30 years. Your donation to this virtual shipment of solar panels will not only power rural Nicaraguan families, but honor Mike who made the lives of countless poor Nicaraguans better.

Click here to donate to keep Mike’s mutual aid shipments to Nicaragua going. Or send us a check in Mike’s honor to PeaceWorks, PO Box 268, 634 Eagle Rock Rd., West Orange, NJ 07052