ECHO * Blog 8

Echo, my voice is an echo of places I don't know and stories I've been told.
--The Hush Sound

So pretty much that first sentence is in here because that’s the first song that came to mind when I first heard about ECHO. It’s a great song. And, has a little bit to do with ECHO or Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization.

Before this Colloquium class, I had never heard of such a place—only been told stories from teammates.

“ECHO is a non-profit organization whose vision is "to bring glory to God and a blessing to mankind by using science and technology to help the poor.’”

This Christian foundation studies new ways to develop food in different settings including rain forests, hillsides, desert land and moderate temperatures. They do this to learn for themselves, but also in order to distribute their knowledge to the rest of the world. The ECHO farm is located in Ft. Myers, but there are people all over the world working with this widely known organization.

One of their aims is to teach people in underdeveloped countries how to grow and produce food in their own yards or even on their own roofs. One of the testing houses had old tires with different plants growing in them.

Helen, our tour guide, gave an awesome tour of the complex showing us two different ways of watering crops, how they are decomposing trash with worms and that the chickens are cultivating the soil so crops can grow.

In order to be more sustainable, people can become more aware of how growing his or her own food can help each other be compatible with the earth. By doing so, people not only enrich the soil, but cause less trips to the grocery store or market because the food will be in his or her own back yard. ECHO’s goal is to teach the world how to grow foods from unlikely sources, not just from the norm.

Publix has a small organic section that I could possibly shop in. I have eaten organic food before, but do not purchase it regularly for it is a bit more expensive than other foods. There is a variety of foods the few aisles; for example, different types of seeds, various pastas, milk, chips and other foods are available for purchase.

ECHO was a very cool field trip. I think climbing the tree across the way was pretty legitimate too.