BERTRAND - A seed program is sprouting in Bertrand, with the mission of providing seeds and agricultural support to missionaries and mission teams.
Hope Seeds was founded seven years ago by Mike and Jean Mueller, who moved from the Sikeston area to Florida in 1982. They grow vegetables for seed, which is then sent to third-world countries. The program started in Florida and is spreading to Bertrand.
“It’s amazing to me how much seed gets thrown out,” Mike Mueller said. “There’s more than enough here.” Before Hope Seeds, he never realized how scarce seeds were in other countries.
The program began about 10 years ago, when the Muellers sent clothes to Haiti with their Florida Church. They had some extra room in the package and extra seed on the shelves, so Mike and Jean sent some seeds in the package.
“It went over real well,” Mueller recalled. “They contacted us and said ‘whoever sent that seed, send some more.’”
And that was just the beginning. Within one year, missionaries from around the United States were contacting the Muellers for seeds to take to other countries, Mueller said. And by 1999, 20 countries were asking for seeds, with Hope Seeds more popular than their profit-bearing business.
So in 2000, the Muellers made a change. “We prayed about it and decided we would concentrate on free seeds,” Mueller said.
And now, the Bertrand location is just kicking off. Mueller took over the greenhouses from his brother a year ago, with hopes of expanding the Hope Seeds program. “If it (Hope Seeds) was gonna suffer, I wasn’t going to do it,” Mueller said.
Volunteers are needed to help tend the garden and package seeds at Bertrand. Soon, volunteers will also be needed to grow in their own gardens and harvest the seed themselves. “I want to do it small before I get too many people involved,” Mueller said.
At Mueller’s greenhouses in Bertrand, there is a volunteer work room for seed packages. One a large quantity are done, a bundle is made with 10 varieties of seeds, depending on where the seed is going.
Volunteer work will begin in August, and sign-up sheets are located at the front desk of the greenhouses. Work times are tentatively scheduled for 9 a.m. to noon. “In Florida, we’ve found that’s what people like to do,” Mueller noted.
In Bertrand, they hope to grow in the garden and increase the number of seed packets, Mueller said.
Although getting the seed where it needs to go is important, it is just as imperative that people know how to plant and care for it. “We do a lot of training,” Mueller said, adding people can also ask questions on the Internet. “Most of the people, after a few short operations, find out they know more than they think they do,”
In addition to sending seed, the Muellers themselves have traveled to the poverty-stricken areas, including Haiti, Nicaragua and Honduras. In they coming year, they plan to revisit Haiti, in addition to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
And in 2006, he is hopeful to travel to Sierra Leonne. “That's where the major civil wars were last year,” Mueller said. “They have great knowledge, but their infrastructure is messed up because of the war,” he said.
Sierra Leonne is like most of the other countries who benefit from Hope Seeds - they just need a helping hand right now. Most countries only use three to four percent of the seed sources around the world available to them, and countries need help understanding what is available, Mueller said. Some countries receive seeds for vegetables they have never seen before.
And for most of the countries, vegetables are very important, since they make one meal a day - a stew pot, with some meat for flavor, mixed with leaves and other vegetables, then poured on top of rice or cornmeal.
“What hurts is when they don’t have the stew pot,” Mueller said. “That’s when malnutrition sets in.”
To help people get the right nutrients, each package of seed packets is also accompanied by a nutrition card that includes the name of the vegetables, their important nutrients and suggested use.
Another critical part of the Hope Seeds program is going to orphanages.
“They have no one at home to teach them the trade,” Mueller said. “The kids really learn a lot about gardening and eating right,” he said.
There are several ways to get involved, Mueller said. One program, ‘Kids Helping Kids’ is aimed toward schools. “A lot of times, school kids collect funds,” Mueller said.”
Hope Seeds also accepts other items to send to those in need. Garden items, such as gloves, trowels and flower rakes and toiletries, including toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, wash cloths and blankets are sent. Monetary donations, which are tax deductible, are also welcome.
For more information, visit the Hope Seeds Web site at www.hopeseeds.org or call the Muellers Greenhouses at (573) 683-6879.
