5-17-09 Kittens' in the news....

Greetings guys, all is well just returned from a long strange journey into the hinterlands of America, the Minnesota prairie, the Wobagon trail. My future farm/ nay our future farm.

Here is an article about my lovely woman in the VEGA Alliance newsletter.
VEGA is described as:

Volunteers for Economic Growth Alliance
is the world’s largest nonprofit consortium
dedicated to promoting economic growth in
developing and transitional nations.

She's a wonderfully talented creature and I look very forward to sharing the experience of Minnesota with.

Each year National Volunteer Week presents an opportunity
for nonprofits to commemorate their volunteers.

In 2009, this week took place from April 19-
25. This year’s theme was“Celebrating People in Action.”

Last year, during National Volunteer Week, VEGA
recognized volunteers from VEGA and Member
Organization projects by awarding them the President’s
Volunteer ServiceAward (PVSA) and the
VEGA Service ImpactAward.

The awardees submitted photos from their
volunteer assignments in a VEGA photo contest.
The winner, Cathryn Kloetzli, is a Winrock International
volunteer who was recognized for her
specialized technical assistance in agricultural development
and pest management.

She provided assistance to farmers in Kyrgyzstan and
Nepal. In Osh, Kyrgyzstan,she worked with small-scale garden and
fruit tree farmers belonging to Water User's Associations.

WUAs are a selfmanaging group of community
members who manage, maintain and operate
the local water supply to ensure a fair and
equitable distribution of this resource to reduce
conflict and build social stability. She helped increase
yields and profits by streamlining farmers’water use and production
techniques and conducting trainings in disease management,
alternative pesticides,fertilization and soil health.

In Pokhara, Nepal, she introduced Integrated Pest
Management (IPM) techniques for greenhouse tomato
production. Training in IPM techniques addressed
problems resulting from lack of crop rotation
and fallow periods.

The use of these techniques will improve yields
and profitability and protect the farmers from significant
crop loss due to pest damage.

Member Organizations who would like to recognize
their volunteers by awarding the President’s Volunteer Service Awards
can visit the website below.

www.presidentialserviceawards.gov