Trees For Life

My daughter introduced me to TFL as she noticed something very unique about the organization. In her words, the people are very kind, focused and committed in doing their part to better this world. I have witnessed first hand now how a few focused people can make a huge difference in empowering others. I am very honored to say that I am a part of the TFL team now inspired by my 17 year old.

I have been impressed with every person and interaction I have had with Trees For Life. The focus of helping others around the world is genuine, selfless and infectious. Trees for Life and Teach for Life have got it right. The right vision, the right people and the right method. I highly recommend this nonprofit and can testify to the integrity of it's people.

Teach for Life (a branch of Trees for Life) shows what good teaching looks like. It uses short videos to demonstrate how to teach for critical thinking not rote learning. It was designed to serve teachers who work with the poorest children of the world. All videos are free. This volunteer work has enriched my life and shown me how I can use my talents to help others with great needs. All children deserve a quality education. This gives them the opportunity to escape poverty.
Sheril Logan

I first heard about Trees For Life at a peace conference back in 1986. The idea of planting more trees always appealed to me, and planting trees that feed people was even better. So I started making regular contributions as well as special ones in memory of loved ones who had passed away. The folks at Trees For Life have always been helpful if I had a question or a concern, and it is a wonderful project to not only plant trees that feed the hungry but teach people in those areas to help their neighboring communities to do the same. TFL has since branched out into other areas that are helpful to poor communities. It makes me feel great that over the years my small contributions have helped so many people and helped this organization to continue its wonderful mission.

A Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal, I reached out to Trees for Life for help with a training on the moringa tree. Dedicated to helping people break the cycle of poverty through grassroots forestry initiatives, Trees for Life seemed like the perfect organization to partner with.

With Trees for Life's support, local counterparts and Peace Corps volunteers were able to train close to 200 local health agents on moringa cultivation and preparation. With its high nutritional value, moringa has a huge potential to help alleviate vitamin deficiencies in a region of Senegal where 16.7% of the population suffers from severe malnutrition according to the UN's World Food Program. Moringa powder's high commercial value also makes it a lucrative income generating activity. By training local health agents to train at least five households in their neighborhood about moringa, we started the conversation about the tree in over 100 villages and reached hundreds, if not thousands, of people. We wouldn't have been able to do it without Trees for Life and highly recommend working with this organization.

I am more concern about the envirement detoriaiton of green planet earth.

when i started to do planting Moringa for the Malaysian natives villages for nutrition as well as a cash crop to supplement as food for own consumption as well a source of income for the natives, I found tress for life organisation support with literature support on moringa my work in promoting planting made easy for many persons to understand the importance of Moringa tree planting here in malaysia, this organisation of books for life also supported my work with children education by contributing donating books. your organisation example have made my work for charity very much easier to reach out to people who needs my assistance and advice. I have made great leads and impact on the trees for life actvity here in Malaysia within three months take off.currently I work with several organisation for charity in Malaysia.especially with the natives population.

Trees for Life has been a time tested charity. It has made a difference in many countries fighting hunger and malnutrition for more than three decades. They believe in educating the masses about nutrition, helping them plant trees, create economic empowerment, and improve the health and wellness of villages around the world, all with the power of the Moringa tree.

Wichita, Kansas has been home to this selfless organization. It is unusual to see a non-profit organization succeed solely with the help of volunteers.

Nalini Gangadhar

I am very inspired by the TFL organization, they are very dedicated and selfless in their commitment to serving the under privileged around the world. My daughter came here to volunteer one summer and fell in love with the project. She has inspired our whole family to get involved and is the driving force in her school to get her classmates involved.

I WAS SURFING THE WEB FOR HELP FOR OUR FAMILIES AND MINISTRY IN HAITI. SURFING THE WEB IS TIME CONSUMING AND MOSTLY NOT VERY PROFITABLE...THEN I HIT "TREE FOR LIFE". WOW, I DID IT, I HIT THE MOTHER LOAD (CAN CHRISTIANS SAY THAT?). TREVA ANSWERED THE PHONE AND SHE IS A CHRISTIAN, NOT BY SAYING SO, BUT BY DOING: KIND, GENEROUS, HELPFUL, INSTRUCTIONAL, GIVING ME GREAT INFORMATION, ASKING QUESTIONS TO BE ABLE TO RECOMMEND RESOURCES, OTHER REFERRALS, WEBSITES, AND NONPROFITS. I MIGHT EVEN GET SAVED.

IT IS AN ONGOING GREAT EXPERIENCE, LAYING BUILDING BLOCKS FOR A CONTINUAL PARTNERSHIP AS WE SERVE HIM TOGETHER IN "HIS HAITI".

PASTOR DAN

For our wedding anniversary each year, we purchase 100 fruit trees from Trees For Life. We understand fully that there are several amazing ecologically supportive, disease/hunger fighting projects being carried out by Trees For Life. Our monies go to Trees For Life and are spent as only Trees For Life could. Each project is beyond worthy, but this married couple has found a way for romance to be held up by disease fighting, hunger abating, ecology sustaining, and so much more. These projects are done around the globe where it is needed most. We will likely never visit a fruit tree that is providing shade and food while stabilizing a river's bank with its roots. But each year, we buy another 100. And around our own neighborhood in this world, we can gaze out at tree topped vistas to try to see if we could understand what our hundreds of trees amount to if they were grouped. It is very romantic. And every time I have corresponded with someone working for Trees For Life, it has been a pleasure and an honor. Their causes are not easy, but they are achievable and powerful in their beautiful simplicity. Please support them, there is no better gift to give to someone of importance!

Trees for Life is a great website and really spreads awareness of what can be done to avert hunger around the world.
The site is easy to navigate and eventhough there is alot of information on the site, it is very easy to find what you are looking for.

I have served on the board of trustees at Trees for Life the past fifteen years. The organization meets three times yearly. We are given detailed updates on what is taking place and asked for our opinions on new ways the organization is working.

Alternative Gifts International has a long history of partnering wtih Trees for Life. This is a first class operation whose founders and leadership have worked to expand their outreach into building sustainable programs for the poor. I have visited their headquarters and I admite this great group of people for their dedication and sacrifice.

This is a very genuine organization that I'm very happy to support.

I've known about TFL for a long time, and actually had the pleasure of sharing a house with someone who was an active volunteer for the organization (he spent a lot of time in Latin America helping people build more efficient stoves) for a year.

This is an organization that is clearly run from the heart, with wisdom and clarity about how to truly be of assistance in areas of the world that need help.

They plant trees, start libraries, help with water and nutrition and seem to be very "here" and paying attention to what will work.

The founder's stories of his experiences are uplifting and ring true to me.

Thanks for the opportunity to be able to vote.

First i'd like to say how grateful i am to have an opportunity to serve at "Trees For Life". It gives me a chance for even a few hours a week to be able to give and serve. Amazing place with amazing people, who are united and dedicated in helping the poorest in the world with their humble work.
If people are willing, at "Trees For Life" they're provided with opportunities to develop their potential and to find out who they are and what they're looking for in life.

I met Balbir in 1984 and we''ve been friends since. He was just in the process of giving birth to Trees For Life and I felt then and still feel it is a kind of paradigm for what helping institutions will become in the future, simple, family-like groups dedicated to empowering people who are often overlooked or exploited by more powerful institutions. The focus is on helping people achieve what they want to achieve by listening to them and joining with them so that what is gained is prized by the receiver since the receiver has worked hard to achieve the goal or project and hasn't just been the recipient of money or goods and services supplied by a donor without any effort on the part of the recipient to share in the work and responsibility.

I became friends with Treva and Balbir through my sister who was a journalist doing a story on Trees for Life. Over the years my children and I would help out at the office and enjoy the "communal" lunches. During that time I was working for a well-respected investment manager who managed $350 million in charitable foundation funds. In talking to him one day about non-profits, he said "it is much easier to build the wealth initially, than to find disciplined non-profits in which to contribute to". He used Trees for Life as an example of a movement that astutely balances business efficiency and deep compassion. I have contributed to Trees for Life, but more than that I have loved each and everyone of them. Balbir (and all of them) have set a barometer for me to live by. As David says, "It is not about changing the world...it is about loving the world. It is about offering a hand so that others may live, and offering my heart so that I may live. The change that the world truly needs is the change in me, the opening of my heart".

My husband and I were full-time volunteers for Trees for Life for 7-l/2 years, 3 of which were spent in India as volunteer teachers of conversational English at a school for 1200 poverty-level children. We also helped establish a medical lab at the school and helped teach computers to students and teachers. Our experience there stands out as the most extraordinary years of our lives. The school provides a 21st century education to children, many of whom are first-generation learners, whose parents earn about $1 a day. These children would not be likely to attend school if Trees for Life did not support this school. Trees for Life's philosophy is all about empowering people, whether it's kids attending school or people in a village who want to build a school or a library, drill a water well, improve the health of their community or plant trees ... all of which are the kinds of projects Trees for Life works with communities in developing countries to create. I found Trees for Life to be a personal growth experience. The leadership is always interested in a volunteer's personal growth as much as "production" of any project. It is a spiritual place to work, without being religious. Trees for Life uses its resources very judiciously. Contributions stretch a long way because of a strong volunteer base and an ethic of conservative money management. Volunteers of all ages, races, nationalities, and sexual orientations have found a welcome home at Trees for Life. If someone is searching for his/her niche in life, no matter what stage of life, Trees for Life might just be the place to figure that out and have a great experience in the process!

I did a year of full-time volunteering for Trees for Life doing graphic and web design. It was an incredible place to be with wonderful people. Working there was a great experience!

On my first visit to Trees for Life, I was extremely impressed with those who worked there and with the volunteers. After hearing from Mr. Mathur, I was telling him that I thought he was doing a wonderful work on behalf of those in very needy circumstances. He said that for him, the work made him feel as though he was privileged to "dance with the angels" each day. In 2009, my husband & I were involved in a children's book drive in as many areas of Kansas as we could, to collect books to build a library in Ethopia. The person in Ethopia who made this request to Trees for Life,now provides a cart to regularly take more books to the rural areas. We saw a video of the cart entering a small village & the sides of the road were lined with children waiting to see that months delivery. Mr. Mathur was able to talk a large grocery chain into having boxes where people could drop the books when they did their grocery shopping. I find the organization to be very caring; the volunteers that work reqularly there are very pleased with the outcomes of their efforts.

I volunteered as the community volunteer coordinator. I started at a very difficult time in my life, and the work, the staff and other volunteers showed me that there is a great group of people and good work needing to be done. Those years were some of themost fu, working with volunteers doing mailings, sending out trees, and oh so much more. Would love to do t again! Only left because we moved away.

This is an organization about which there are not enough superlatives. Balbir, the founder and guiding light, is someone about whom enough superlatives cannot be articulated. He is surrounding by a loving and caring "family" of similar persuasion, and the net result is an organization that makes phenomenally effective use of a very, very low level of funding. There is so much selfless giving going out of that organization, and they all genuinely receive abundant energy back from those who they serve. Balbir has started a movement (as he is fond of calling "Trees for Life"), and that movement must not be allowed to wither on the vine. One of the big recent disappointments is the fact that a few years ago, I nominated Balbir Mathur for a "Man of Peace / Person of Peace" award, and he was not given it. This was a rather sizable monetary award that Peace Cereal (my favorite breakfast cereal) was making annually, but appears to have since discontinued. In my capacity serving for 4 years as the inaugural Editor-in-Chief of the Trees for Life Journal, I witnessed time and again the love and compassion emanating from Trees for Life. If there had been a way that I could have served with them on a full-time basis, I would love to have done that. Perhaps when I approach retirement they will have a place for me and hope to return to their embrace. Until then, I continue with my public health research which may ultimately make me a more useful contributor to the Trees for Life movement.

Our clients really enjoy the idea of coming home from an amazing adventure and then being able to donate to Trees for Life

Our clients love the idea of Trees for Life. We're an adventure travel company and upon our client's return they have the option of either receiving a free t-shirt or donating to Trees for Life. A great number of our client opt to donate. Not only is it an added bonus for our client to participate in our tours but it also goes towards a good cause such as providing books for schools in developing countries. We've worked with Trees for Life for nearly two years now and are extremely happy with their work

My primary contact was David Kimble who is very conscientious and works long hours. I admired David's creative talents in developing a fundraising brochure for cookstoves installed in Guatemala.

Everything I've experienced with TFL is impressive. The leaders, the staff, all seem highly committed and fully engaged. Plus, they're great fun to be around. Their ideas and implementation are workable and solution oriented. Whenever I visit they're generous with their time, information, and if it's mealtime, even with their food! I especially love how they partner with communities to teach them to be self-sufficient, not dependent on handouts. With TFL's help, the communities become active partners in designing and implementing solutions to their challenges.

I am a veterinarian and anytime a pet dies or is put to sleep I make a donation to trees for life in memory of the pet. Clients love this charity and often comment they are so pleased that a living tree in memory of their beloved pet is providing food for people in need. This organization is prompt in sending acknowledgement and the people are pleasant and easy to work with. Dr. Marge Mc Millan

I've had a wonderful experience with Trees for Life. I first found TFL through their website. The people are great; it's easy to feel connected at TFL on so many levels. It's also a very exciting place to volunteer because everyone is so enthusiastic about all the projects going on, from the Books for Life bookdrive to the educational lessons being developed for low-income countries. The teamwork is incredible. I appreciate TFL giving me the opportunity to apply skills I have just learned in college. I am able to develop my strengths as well as work on life skills with a very compassionate and dedicated group. TFL is definitely an inspiring place to be. For me, my position at TFL is my ideal job in life. As TFL is empowering people in other countries in many ways, it also has empowered me with job skills, life skills, and a meaningful purpose in life.

I first learned about Trees for Life when we first moved to Kansas around 1982. It was still in its inception at the time. My family followed it with great interest, particulary because it focuses on world hunger and education which are passions of ours. As we learned to know the organization more intimately, Trees for Life became not just another non-profit for us. I began to see how it was a miracle in progress. A number of years later our son decided to volunteer for a while for Trees for Life. He lived on the premesis and loved working there so much that he stayed with the organization for 1 1/2 years before continuing on to graduate school. His time with Trees for Life changed his outlook on life, and he still does short-term volunteer work at Trees for Life when he comes home to Kansas. My personal experiece with Trees for Life came after I retired when I began volunteering once a week with the organization. My tasks focused around working with the 100,000 books for Liberia drive in 2008-2009. The country's minister of education had approached Trees for Life's Books for Life program and asked if we could help them. Local school districts donated thousands of used textbooks and library books for the Liberian children. My job was to sort through the books and make decisions regarding appropriateness and condition. It was an exciting adventure. Many groups from Wichita came to help, and it became a community effort. Books lined the halls and filled the rooms ... a book lover's dream come true. Books were everywhere! My most startling moment came several months later when I took time off to go on a trip with my husband's students. Two weeks later when I returned, to my surprise, an the books were finished - sorted, packed, and even sent! Trees for Life had made an all out effort to pull in groups of volunteers to sort the remaining books and get them on their way to Liberia. It is a gratifying feeling to know that school books that otherwise would have been discarded are today being used to educate an entire country of children who otherwise had little hope for a future. Trees for Life has an amazing capacity that enables miracles to happen.

Trees for Life seems to have a grasp on "grass root" development techniques. I'm impressed with their leadership and the use of volunteers.

Trees for Life is one of the few non-profits with a long-term outlook, one that they intend to last longer than they will themselves. In India, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Liberia, etc., they go only where invited, teach people to organize and help themselves, then leave officially, but maintain contact as friends. Their focus is on education, nutrition, health, environment, and water, but most of all, people.