|
Summarized by Kent Larsen
The miracle of seeds
Deseret News 22Apr00 N1
By Carma Wadley: Deseret News senior writer
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- While biologists and gardeners may already
consider seed a miracle, that's not what the Deseret News' Wadley is
calling a miracle. She writes about a miracle experienced by LDS Church
members and LDS Humanitarian service workers that is blessing the lives
of thousands in remote parts of the globe.
The story of this miracle starts with LDS Church member Helen Larsen,
who re-entered the workforce in March 1997 after 27 years of raising
her family. Larsen joined Garden Grow Co., distributor of the Lilly
Miller line of seeds, and was assigned to make sure that seed displays
in retail stores were well stocked.
Larsen soon discovered that seeds that didn't sell at the end of the
season were sent back to the producer. After working at Garden Grow for
three months, Larsen was sitting in an LDS Church meeting when she was
struck by the impression that the LDS Church needed her leftover seeds.
At that time the Church hadn't made any request for seeds and wasn't
distributing seeds.
She called the LDS Church, and was able to leave a message for Garry
Flake, director of humanitarian service for the Church. Flake was in
North Korea at the time, where he was approaching government leaders in
the starving nation, asking how the Church could assist.
Flake was told that the one thing that North Korea could use most was
seeds. On his return trip, Flake wondered where the Church could get
seeds to assist North Korea. He returned to his office to find the
answer waiting for him on his desk. Arrangements were quickly made, and
five tons of seeds were sent to North Korea.
But Larsen's company liked the idea, and it didn't stop there, "The
company decided it really liked this project, and it set up drop-off
sites throughout the Western states to collect the old seeds," says
Larsen. "The next year we had 20 tons."
The Church didn't stop either -- it soon discovered that there was a
demand for seeds in other parts of the world also. Former Utah State
University horticulturist Duane Hatch and his wife were asked in 1998
to coordinate the project, determining which seeds were best-suited for
each country. Larsen's 20 tons of seeds went to about a dozen different
countries.
In spite of changes at her company that made it look for a time like
seeds wouldn't be available, the company still came though, this time
with about 30 tons of seeds. And the Church has been processing those
seeds to ship to several countries, "We need to get them out early, so
they can be planted while it's still spring," says Hatch. "We've really
been pushing."
Volunteers from the Valley View and Holladay North LDS stakes have been
involved in sorting the seeds, packaging them into bags of 17 different
kinds of seeds, one bag for each recipient family. And the seeds
include three packets of flowers as well as vegetables, "The vegetables
feed the body, but the flowers feed the soul," says Larsen. "They're a
luxury many of these families don't have."
Larsen says response to the project has been overwhelming, "It's been
the neatest thing to see people come here to sort. They leave with a
wonderful feeling, knowing that they are helping someone feed a family.
We've had Eagle Scout projects and a lot of other youth come to help."
This year's seeds will go to the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti,
Kenya and other African nations, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, Thailand,
Laos, North Korea and other places.
"It's just a tremendous humanitarian effort," says Hatch, who recently
went to Mongolia with his wife to grow demonstration gardens. "We've
had hundreds of people donate thousands of hours to do the sorting.
We've pioneered some things." "We hope we're planting something for the
future."
See also:
Mongolia sits at about the same latitude as North Dakota
Deseret News 22Apr00 N1
http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,160009391,00.html
By Carma Wadley: Deseret News senior writer
for an account of Duane and Rose Marie Hatch's trip to Mongolia to grow
demonstration gardens.
[Note: Helen Larsen mentioned in this summary is not related to the
summary's author, Kent Larsen]
|
