How Planting Trees in Haiti Put Kids in School: The Timberland Story

When’s the last time you walked into your yard or cal park, looked up at the trees, and in the same thought, gave thanks for the education of your children?

It’s not a correlation I’ve ever made. But it is to Gustave, a smallholder farmer from Gonaïves, Haiti. Trees are sending his five kids to school. Three of the five are attending high school, analogous to attending Harvard in the United States. Only five percent of children attend high school in Haiti and Gustave’s three children are the first in his family to make it this far.  Trees are making this happen. The planting of trees is also raising farmers’ incomes between 30 and 50 percent. Through a collaborative effort by boot-making company Timberland and Haiti’s Smallholder Farmers’ Alliance (SFA), five million trees are changing the future of Haiti’s next generation of leaders.

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Julie is passionate about telling the story of where business meets good. She is the Founder of B Storytelling, a content development company specifically designed to help popularize the good happening through business. They do this by helping Benefit Corporations and other social enterprises identify, build and leverage their brands. Julie has an MBA in Managing for Sustainability from Marlboro Graduate School. She lives in West Palm Beach, Florida with her husband, Thomas.