Social Projects
Our experience working with non-profits, NGO’s, food security, and poverty alleviation projects goes back to 1966. Since then, we have worked in almost every developing country and continue to support projects like this with donations, investments, consulting, and products. We pioneered and developed many sustainable and regenerative techniques, products, and systems that have enough real-world success to prove their benefits. Now that the whole world is so in need of sustainable and regenerative models, it’s time to scale these small endeavors up into large ones. Back in the beginning days of this work, in the early 1970’s, everyone working here made $5 a day. This was fine for young, inspired people at that time; but now, for the benefits of this work to scale up, we need to become competitive with the polluting, harmful business. Otherwise, people have to decide between a meaningful job that helps solve environmental problems and accept a minimal wage with no benefits or sell their souls to a polluting, harmful business but one that has high salaries and benefits. We need to create systems that reward positive contributions to environmental health and planetary regeneration.
Our Projects
The projects on this page include ones we worked on a long time ago as well as current and ongoing versions. We like to “invest” in projects like these instead of only donating. The investment could be a small irrigation system that creates a small microenterprise—if the watering system enables the person or group to grow a cash crop, they can make enough to expand their system and often dramatically increase their income. If any of these projects inspire your support, we can put you in direct touch with the people involved and/or arrange delivery for the goods or services.
International
Food was often scarce for the children living in this Tibetan orphanage. We designed and donated a gravity fed drip irrigation system for their greenhouse, to ensure that food was always provided and plentiful, even during periods of drought. Before this project, the children were almost always hungry. Now, the orphanage has more than enough food, and invites the children from the neighboring school to come over for lunch!
For Fr. Madu’s community, in the Utonkon villages in Nigeria, water was hard to come by. We assisted Fr. Madu in securing funding for one of our solar well pumps in a joint project with the Claretian Missionaries of Nigeria and St. Thomas Aquina University Parish in Boulder. This pump provides safe drinking water and irrigation for almost 15,000 Nigerians living near the Ugenge River.
We installed a Solar PV system installed at a Tibetan Monastery to provide lighting for the 40 resident monks to study religious texts at night. At an elevation of nearly 16,000 feet, the monastery is completely isolated for several months each year due to winter ice and snow and impassable bogs during summer monsoons. This project also provided medical supplies, tools, maintenance equipment and a solar water distiller. 
The Yushu prefecture on the Chinese-Tibetan border has the highest maternal mortality and infant mortality rates in the world. Electricity in this part of the world is often sparse and hard to come by. We supplied the birthing clinic with a solar electric system and a composting toilet so that they could provide high quality care for the mothers and babies of the region. 
This organization is working to preserve medicinal plant knowledge of indigenous cultures. Its first project was in Peru, working in the Amazon basic and high Andes. Dera St. Claire, M.H., leads ecological expeditions to their 6000 acre botanical preserve in northeastern Peru. Sustainable Village provided the Project with tools and solar panels. 
Since 2010, the Green World Campaign has planted 4 million biodiverse native trees, provided eco-education to over 20,000 students and farmers, started a youth-led ‘Trees for Peace’ movement, and established the Eco-Pesa—a voucher system that promotes trade and creates new sources of income from ecologically and socially beneficial enterprises. They have also introduced sustainable practices like “green” charcoal made from agricultural waste (to replace trees cut for firewood), clean low-carbon cook stoves, rainwater catchment systems, and drip irrigation. Sustainable Village started supporting this organization by donating solar lanterns. We have recently connected Green World with Boulder-based herbal remedy company, WishGarden Herbs, with hopes that they will become their primary moringa supplier. 
We supplied gravity watering systems for 500 small farmers in Haiti. Women and children were spending most of their day hauling water, and inefficiently irrigating by dumping it onto the soil. With our inexpensive systems, they only had to make one trip and the water would last several days. The reservoirs irrigate through lengths of BluSoak drip tape, which release water very slowly. This slow drip enables the moisture to penetrate deeper to the root-level as opposed to being wasted due to runoff. 
Legacy Foundation founder Richard Stanley has pioneered, invented tools, and promoted the use of briquette making for over 25 years. This premier appropriate technology saves trees, prevents erosion, and desertification by providing a practical alternative to wood for heating and cooking. It substitutes agricultural waste like hulls, husks, corn stocks, grass, leaves, food and animal waste into a more clean burning and less environmentally compromising fuel source. We started working with Richard more than 15 years ago, printing educational manuals and assisting with outreach. Recently Sustainable Village started a new project with him to test hemp hurd as a component in these briquettes. Domestic
This goji berry farm in Boulder, CO, serves as an educational site for students of the American Institute of Integrative Herbalism. It also became a basecamp for community outreach and conservation center for medicinal plant seed. We donated, designed and installed a highly efficient Growstream irrigation system. Growstream is an innovative drip tape technology that responds to the plant’s roots, and only gives water when the plant asks for it. 
A group of artists, scientists, agroecologists, gardeners and educators created Carbon Sponge, a project that researches the potential for urban soils to sequester carbon, decrease greenhouse gases and build healthy soil. We designed an automatic Blumat irrigation system for their exhibit/experiment at the New York Hall of Science. 
Working as an agriculture and family services extension agent in Alaska, Anna uses social media platforms to engage her local community, connect them with food resources, and provide education about gardening and home food production. We donated an irrigation system for her to give to her community in a giveaway campaign on social media. Many Alaskans are away from home for long periods of time fishing and hunting and automatic Blumat irrigation enables them to maintain a garden and supplement their diet with fresh vegetables.