We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gracie Pfaff a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Gracie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I started Harvest107 when I was just 12 years old. It was the summer of 2013, and it all started with a book. I read The Good Garden: How One Family Went From Hunger To Having Enough. It is based on a true story in Honduras of how one teacher changed the fate of a failing family farm. I was so inspired by this story that I decided to dig a little deeper. Being the researcher I am, I spent hours on Google reading everything I possibly could about hunger, malnutrition, and small-scale farming. When I learned that over 780 MILLION people were suffering from hunger, of course, I was sad and upset that this was even possible… But more than that, I was angry. I felt it was so unfair for THAT many people to be suffering, not knowing where their next meal was coming from. I had a kitchen filled with food while children like myself were dying of starvation. I knew I had to do something about it.

I immediately ran to my mom and yelled: MOM! WE HAVE TO GO TO AFRICA AND TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO GROW THEIR OWN FOOD! She was supportive but encouraged me to start a little closer to home. So, I founded Harvest107. Our first project was at a school just outside Nashville, Tennessee, where 50% of students were from low-income families.

I quickly became one of the youngest service leaders in the world, and I still am! So many people told me it was a phase, that I would be satisfied after my “little garden project.” Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence! But I wasn’t satisfied with that – it wasn’t and will never be enough.

Less than a year after starting Harvest107, my family and I went on a month-long trip to Haiti. We fell in love with the country and I knew where Harvest107 needed to go next. Not long after establishing in Haiti, we moved full-time. We then lived there for 5 years and have directly impacted thousands of people.

Since the very beginning, My vision for Harvest107 has been to empower others with the knowledge to grow their own food sustainably, ending hunger and malnutrition. I’m a problem-solver, when I see an issue/roadblock, I am instantly thinking of ways to fix it. Upon learning about the severity of world hunger, my initial thought was, “How do we fix this?” There had to be a missing key… and that was sustainability. “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” When I started Harvest107, I knew that I didn’t want to provide a temporary solution. Since then, we have been constantly developing courses on sustainability, teaching the fundamentals of it, and coming up with innovative and resourceful solutions to everyday challenges.

That vision is fulfilled in Harvest107’s school gardens, S.H.E Initiative, and Family Farm Pack Program. Our comprehensive, teaching-based approach is helping people in both urban and rural settings create food sources. And it all started with a 12-year-old and a book.

Gracie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

At Harvest107, we know that 3 billion people aren’t getting the nutrition they need. We believe everyone deserves healthy food to eat, so we help people grow organic, nutritious vegetables to end hunger sustainably.

Over 60% of those who are hungry and undernourished are women and children. While the ins and outs of hunger are complex, there’s one thing we know for sure: women are the key to ending hunger, especially in developing nations. That’s why we train female farmers sustainability, health, and agriculture entrepreneurship. Through our SHE Initiative and Family Farm Pack program, we are providing women and their families with the information and tools they need to successfully and sustainably grow their own organic, fresh vegetables.

Harvest107 is also helping attack hunger by teaching the next generation about growing fresh, organic food, and how caring for the environment means a healthier future. We do this by working with schools (in both the U.S. and Haiti) to build gardens and implement these lessons through our speciality student sustainability course. Providing children with this knowledge has a multiplying effect, as they take home what they’ve learned to their family and friends, and one day will pass it on to their own children.

Over the past 7 years, Harvest107 has been able to help thousands of people achieve food security and this is just the beginning. Our goal is to work ourselves out of a job – we won’t stop until every person has access to healthy, nutritious foods.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I’ve found that there are many challenges that leaders and world-changers face. They tend to form as thoughts or questions we quietly ask ourselves. I had to quickly unlearn the questions: “Am I cut out for this? What if I can’t make a big enough difference?”

I think self-doubt is common in any industry. Especially, when you are going against the grain and actively working to make the world a better place. Being a 12-year-old who was homeschooled and then started a nonprofit, it’s safe to say that I wasn’t “typical”. I lost pretty much all of my friends, most of my community thought it was a phase, and even some extended family members were skeptical. All of this external doubt eventually creeped into my own mental state. I wondered constantly, “Am I doing enough? What if I can’t make a difference? Am I making a mistake?” It was unhealthy, discouraging, and frustrating. I had to recognize what was internal doubt, and what was actually external. I then used that doubt to propel me, to encourage growth and strength.

Doing good in the world requires BRAVERY. It’s not every day that you see people stepping up to make a difference. It can be lonely, difficult, stressful, and a mix of a million other emotions, some of which we might not even know what they are. But here’s the good news: You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to know everything or be the top in your industry, but you do have to know your personal mission and be confident in your ability to accomplish it.

I had to come to this conclusion: Through all of your effort, time, and energy, if I only impact one life, guess what? That’s an ENTIRE LIFE that I was able to impact. Why do we tell ourselves it’s not enough?! Also, fun fact about doing good in the world: when you impact one life, you’re making a huge difference in many lives. Want to know how? When one life is completely changed, that means the lives of their children, family, even community is completely changed.

Don’t let self-doubt stop you from realizing a dream, impacting a community, or changing your own life.

Have you ever had to pivot?

We can all admit that 2020 was a difficult year for everyone. When the pandemic arrived in Haiti and the U.S., everything had to change. The farmers we work with were temporarily unable to sell at market in Haiti because they didn’t have access to masks and other necessities required to do so. This challenge allowed us to team up with a local artisan business to have masks made for the women and their families to get them back to market.

Within the past 2 years, there have been many unique challenges like this, but we have been able to keep working hard through it all. In Haiti, the price of food drastically increased because of the pandemic. With the expense of food rising, it becomes increasingly difficult to have access to the nutrition families need. Our work is more important now than ever before!

We have been able to focus on remote training, and even were able to partner with a mobile company to provide free sustainable agriculture education to every Haitian with a mobile service (which is over 7.4+ million people!).

It is normal and natural to fear changes or pivoting, but I’ve personally found that these challenges encourage incredible growth and can unlock opportunities you never thought possible!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://harvest107.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harvest107
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/harvest107
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harvest107/about
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/harvest107