07/29/2025
๐ณ๐๐ผ๐ป๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฒ๐ ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐น๐ฒ๐ฏ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐๐ฒ๐ ๐ณ ๐๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ ๐ผ๐ณ ๐ถ๐บ๐ฝ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐.๐ณ
Seven years ago today, in a trailer office on a Virgina farm, Sean Dixon-Sullivan asked Tommy Turok how to create a 501c3. He knew how. After two hours of online forms and one pot of coffee, Contour Lines was born.
One simple goal, plant as many feet of Contour Lines as possible.
Sick of seeing orgs that waste time with meetings, meeting about meetings, then meeting about that meeting they previously met on, just to finally draft a proposal... that would require more meetings; sick of orgs that revolve around "educating" only to preach their so-called superior way to farmers who would then go home and never implement it, or "planting projects" that only drop off trees to take a photo and then never return, only for the trees to die; sick of orgs that waste tons of funds with offices full of admin staff, teams of who-knows-who driving around in fancy pickups, achieving who-knows-what; sick of what Sean sees daily visiting communities in Guateโthe same old story from campesino families who have seen nonprofits offering, paternalizing, wasting money and achieveing nothing, committing the same error for decades, still, since Roland Bunch published "Two Ears of Corn" on this exact subject over 30 years ago.
Tommy and Sean knew a shift in nonprofit development has been needed.
For 7 years they've scaled a work model. Low overheads, no pickups, no offices, just Tommy and Sean on the admin side and a team of bad@ss local techs getting **it done. Contour Lines.
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๐ง๐ต๐ฎ๐ป๐ธ๐ ๐๐ผ ๐ฎ๐น๐น ๐๐ต๐ผ ๐บ๐ฎ๐ธ๐ฒ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ ๐ฝ๐ผ๐๐๐ถ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ:
๐ณProviding the productive backbone of our agroforestry sites and the main incentive for campesinos to plant themโthe grafted fruit trees, over 600k to dateโthanks toDwight Carter of Frutas del Mundo, his nursery crew led by Jason and post-harvest dept. led by Daniela.
๐ณGuiding us with the wisdom and experience in how to organize and motivate rural communities, thanks to Abelardo Pop, our original field technician, and now supervisor and trainer of the rest of the field teams.
๐ณDoing the work, from training the families, designing and planting the sites, to monitoring, gathering data and coordinating the harvestsโour field technicians are the next generation of leader, making this regenerative transition happen across Guatemala. Thanks to Ronaldo, Wilson, Diego and Victor, and their up-and-coming sub-techs, now leading teams of their own.
๐ณSupporting from afar, yet just as essential, thanks to our donors. One Tree Planted, Fundaciรณn Mundo Azul, I Give Trees, Ecosystem Restoration Communities, Agroforestry Regeneration Communities, Abundant Earth Foundation, Trees That Feed Foundation, One Earth
And bringing income to the families restoring their land with Contour Lines agroforestry projects, motivating them to further expand this work to our post-harvest department, thanks to the Contour Lines Post Harvest department, Contour Lines Center, led by Nictรช Milhose and Ulysses Milhose.
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See flyer in the comments, how you can support the movement.๐ช
