User:Levo International Inc/sandbox

Levo International, Incorporated is a social enterprise, whose mission is to empower people to end poverty. The empowerment of individuals is the core of how Levo functions, as it would not run and grow to the lengths it has without its devoted team. Levo has used people to help innovative techniques to help food-insecure populations. Food insecurity, as defined by the United Nations is when people do not have regular access to safe and nutritious food needed for regular growth and development to live a healthy lifestyle. Food insecurity is an ever-growing issue and as of 2021, food insecurity has risen from 2.3 billion to 2.8 billion in recent years.. More specifically, this mission started in Hartford, Connecticut, where Levo is based. Hartford is a food desert; in simple terms, a food desert is a place in which people have limited access to healthy and nutritious food that is also affordable. The fight to help food-insecure populations has been hard for many because agriculture has been intensified throughout the world has resulted in land degradation and soil erosion.To combat this, Levo has impelled the use of simplified hydroponic systems. Simplified hydroponics, is done to make hydroponic farming accessible to everyone because traditionally it can be expensive. Simplified hydroponics allows the same benefits of soil-free farming while keeping costs low. This helps people living in poverty by providing food with essential nutrients that are otherwise unavailable. This is key to Levo’s mission because it invests in people and gives them the proper tools to succeed in a system built against them. To fulfill this goal, Christian Heiden presented the idea of building their first installation in Haiti, with the help of Many Hands for Haiti this was a success and Levo was able to help 300 school children with access to hydroponic systems. After this success, Levo launched their CSA urban farming pilot in Hartford CT to the local food system. This provided access to the same benefits to the Greater Hartford community.

History:

Levo’s story begins with Christian Heiden’s ambitious Eagle Scout project at the age of 16,highlighting various hydroponic concerns. project. In this project, he wanted to reach more than the community in Connecticut. He proposed the idea of building a hydroponic greenhouse for Many Hands for Haiti. While his idea was grand, Eagle Scout thought it was too ambitious, despite this Christian Heiden set out to complete this goal. Alongside his father Bill Heiden and his brother Nate Heiden, they built a mock greenhouse(cite) for Many Hands for Haiti in July of 2016. They built this on a compound belonging to Many Hands for Haiti located in Pignon, Haiti. This was done to help the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere by giving them a sustainable food supply that is worthwhile. Alongside this, the community was trained so they had the proper training to maintain these systems to continue the growing food supply. After this in 2017, a small team created Levo International’s first installation of a hydroponic system, thus this was the creation of the Babylon system. From this installation, Levo built up its protocols and modified its hydroponic systems to better help the families in Haiti.

While their work abroad is immense, they also cater to the community in Hartford, CT. In Hartford, they implement a CSA farming pilot program. As mentioned Hartford, CT is a food desert, this leaves the community at hand with inadequate access to proper nutrition. This allows users to subscribe to a monthly subscription which allows them to obtain fresh produce grown by Levo. Ensuring that communities that do not have access to fresh produce in food deserts such as Hartford, CT can still access those goods. In providing this, Levo has worked with a plethora of local churches and organizations to help expand its amounts of growers and buyers within the community. Programs such as CSA have helped the community leaders in charge. Levo works with communities to help determine area-specific challenges and from there create a plan to help combat those challenges.