Because the last thing he needs this Father's Day is another tie.  Or grill set.  Or flat screen tv.

Surry, ME, June 1, 2009 - Sustainable Harvest International (SHI,) a Surry, ME-based non-profit that helps Central American farmers farm sustainably and restore their environment, is offering some eco-friendly gift ideas for Dad this year: Gifts of Hope.  They are donations that range anywhere from $25 to $450, and give Dads in the impoverished countries of Honduras, Belize, Panama and Nicaragua the chance to improve their lives.  These are Dads who don't have electricity, much less TVs. But their goals are the same as Dads everywhere - to provide the best quality of life for their families.

Gifts of Hope include:

• a $25 gift, that provides a Dad with the seeds, materials and training to plant trees.
• a $50 gift, that can help a Dad build a wood conserving stove, which saves thousands of trees and greatly improve families' health.
• a $300 gift, which provides Dad and his family with the training and capital to start a rural bank, which community members match and manage.  Families can then start small businesses and invest in their future.
• a $450 gift, that will support a Dad and his entire family's work with SHI for one year.

Every gift comes with a handmade note to the special Dad in your life; and anything over $40 comes with an SHI baseball cap, just the thing he can never have too many of.

Sure, he'd rather have a new 1080p LCD HDTV with a built in Blu-ray DVD player.    But just tell him that prices will be lower by Christmas.

Here is a link to SHI:  www.sustainableharvest.org
and to their Gifts of Hope page for Father's Day: http://sustainableharvest.org/giftofhope.cfm

Any questions, please contact Sarah Kennedy (SHI's Outreach Director) at 919-967-3662, or sarah@sustainableharvest.org
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About SHI:  Founded by a former Peace Corps member, Florence Reed, SHI has been helping to empower men and their farming families in Central America since 1997.  In that time it has planted more than 2,000,000 trees, converted more than 9,000 acres to sustainable uses, thereby saving over 45,000 acres from slash-and-burn destruction, and improved nutrition through the establishment of more than 4700 organic vegetable gardens.   For three consecutive years SHI received a 4 star rating from Charity Navigator; SHI was also recently named one of Charity Navigator's top ten best managed environmental non profits in the country - and of those ten, it is the only one run by a woman.  And SHI was just recognized for Non Profit Excellence at the Annual Maine Association of Non Profits (MANP) Dirigo Awards.