What's that? Delicious solar toasted granola and solar dehydrated fruit as a sustainable social enterprise supporting and empowering a malnourished community in Guatemala? Yep, to recap, that's our project.
With the solar dehydrator and oven designs complete it was time to think big. Chaytanya and Brennan partnered with a carpenter workshop in the area and members of the local Mayan community to start building. The results thus far are impressive. The solar dehydrator uses the sun to create an airflow that dries fruit in one to two days. The solar oven concentrates solar thermal energy to cook food at the same temperatures as a conventional oven.
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| Chaytanya and Mateo building the dehydrator prototype |
If January was a time for planning, community engagement, and sourcing of materials, February has been a month of action. Chaytanya and Brennan set to work building prototypes of the solar dehydrator and solar oven to make sure we had the best technological design. They built fully functioning mini-models and soon we were snacking on delicious dried pineapple and sun roasted nuts to fuel our brainstorming sessions.
Meanwhile, I set to work on a more in-depth market analysis to understand what kind of products we should make. How could we compete on cost, quality, and originality? With almost no dehydrated fruit on the market the opportunities were abundant. We decided to design a few different products and test how they sold: a delicious superfood fruit and nut bar, fruit leather, trail mix, and simple packages of dried fruit. Yum.
Meanwhile, I set to work on a more in-depth market analysis to understand what kind of products we should make. How could we compete on cost, quality, and originality? With almost no dehydrated fruit on the market the opportunities were abundant. We decided to design a few different products and test how they sold: a delicious superfood fruit and nut bar, fruit leather, trail mix, and simple packages of dried fruit. Yum.
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| Starting the final version of solar dehydrator! |
Ben and I began a period of mad scientist experimentation in the kitchen working with dried fruit and sun roasted granola from the prototype solar dehydrator and solar oven. Our best nutrition bar recipe thus far involves a dried banana base mixed in with sun roasted granola and chunks of cacao and then baked in our solar oven. It's tasty enough that one of our biggest challenges has been protecting it from prying hands in the kitchen long enough to taste test. We also began researching and sourcing packaging options as Brennan and I have worked on label design.
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| Mad scientist recipe concoctions in the kitchen. Yum. |
In the next two weeks we plan to finish construction on the solar dehydrator and solar oven as well as hold workshops at Konojel with the local community on how to operate and maintain the technologies. We plan to finalize our recipes and teach them to the women who work at Konojel. Finally, we plan to complete the packaging and logo design and begin the marketing and small scale roll out of the product. But we need your help!
How You Can Help:
Our initial seed funding from Project Nuevo Mundo has gotten us far, but we need your help to finish the project! Our goal is raise $500 dollars USD in the next week. It's a tall order, but with the power of all our combined networks I know we can do it! Have only $10, $15, $20 to contribute? Awesome! Do you know how far that goes in Guatemala?
With your incredibly generous donations we will be able to pay off the final hardware costs on the solar dehydrator and oven, purchase a starting surplus of fruit and nuts to start off the sustainable enterprise, buy labels and packaging for the first month of production, buy food storage containers, and potentially a back-up blender, plus so much more!
We're talking about feeding malnourished children while empowering local indigenous women through a sustainable, revenue generating, social enterprise. Solar energy never felt so good!
Donations:
You can send your donations to us via PayPal. Please send all donations to "julianamandell@gmail.com" on PayPal. We will make sure to send everyone who contributes a confirmation that we recieved your donation. Also, don't be confused if the name on the account at some point reads "Abigail Jones" as the account was orginally under my mother's name. However, all donations go directly to my account.
If you are unfamiliar with PayPal follow these simple steps: 1) Log into your PayPal Account. 2) Click on the "Send Money" tab. 3) Under "To:" enter "julianamandell@gmail.com" then the amount you want to contribute. 4) Select "USA" for our country of residence and "Sending money to family or friends." 5) Press Continue!
Please let us know if you have any problems.
If you are unfamiliar with PayPal follow these simple steps: 1) Log into your PayPal Account. 2) Click on the "Send Money" tab. 3) Under "To:" enter "julianamandell@gmail.com" then the amount you want to contribute. 4) Select "USA" for our country of residence and "Sending money to family or friends." 5) Press Continue!
Please let us know if you have any problems.
THANK YOU!!!
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