Give Menu

ECHO Interactive

Gift Catalog

The ECHO Gift Catalog

Give a Gift that provides HELP for today and HOPE for the future!

For 30 years, ECHO has been a resource of sustainable solutions for those who are working directly with the poor overseas. Your gifts will help ECHO reach thousands of community leaders in 180 countries with simple and affordable ideas that work.

By clicking one of the links below, you can bring hope to families who are working very hard to survive. Your gifts, through ECHO, make you an answer to someone’s cry for help.

With our sincere thanks,

Stan Doerr

ECHO President

Give the Gift of ECHO Development Notes

On October 15th, ECHO launched a new online portal designed to expand ECHO’s capacity to serve development workers around the world.

At ECHOcommunity.org, users find a wealth of practical and tested information to help them perform their work even better. ECHO’s digital library is available in its entirety, completely searchable and can be read in over 30 languages. ECHO staff and other practitioners are available to help figure out solutions to discouraging problems. There are opportunities to share hard-won successes, all with one objective: to help reduce hunger and improve livelihoods around the world.

$10 will help ECHO provide ECHO Development Notes publication in print, email and on ECHOCommunity.org in multiple languages so that network members have the most access.

Give The Gift of ECHO Development Notes >>

Give the Gift of ECHO Seeds!

You can multiply ECHO’s efforts to provide seeds of specially chosen varieties that will thrive in various climates and produce nutritious food quickly!

Walking into the ECHO Seed Bank, you probably wouldn’t guess that it contains over 350 varieties of vegetables, trees, fruits and other tropical crops. These plants hold special potential for producing under difficult conditions: where it is too dry, too wet, or too hilly for most crops. Much of the seed is grown on the ECHO farm.

The ECHO Seed Bank provides small sample packets of seed to those working as development leaders on behalf of the poor, particularly in developing countries. Those development leaders in return report back to ECHO on performance and community acceptance of the plants. From these reports, people from all over the world are able to learn the benefits of these seed varieties, experiment with new techniques, and share agricultural solutions. In some cases, a pack of ten seeds has multiplied into thousands of plants or even helped introduce a new crop. These seeds will be used to introduce new species into the region that may help alleviate hunger, add nutritional diversity, improve the soil, and produce income for families and communities.

$5 can help package and prepare a sample packet of seeds which will introduce a new nutritious crop to someone in need.

$25 will ensure a packet of seeds from harvest through shipment overseas is delivered to those who are in desperate need for a viable food option.

Give The Gift of Multiplying Seeds >>

Give the Gift of Seed Banks in Asia and Africa!

Your support of ECHO Asia Seed Bank research and development will help promote proven and appropriate seed saving technologies for challenging locations.

Men sharing seeds with one another thanks to the ECHO Asia Seed Bank

Financial support is needed to help the ECHO Asia Impact Center further develop and maintain its regional seed saving and sharing initiatives. Weevils, as well as high humidity and temperatures, take their toll on saved seeds in the tropics. Chemical pesticides and climate-controlled seed storage rooms are possible approaches for extending the storage life of seeds but are not viable options in locations without access to reliable electricity or for those unable or reluctant to use agricultural chemicals.

$15 will help maintain and support the ECHO Asia Seed bank.

$200 will help in the establishment of an East or West Africa Seed Bank, which will further expand our capabilities and increase crop diversity in our seed banks.

Give The Gift of Seed Banks in Asia and Africa >>

Give the Gift of Appropriate Technology!

You can spread ECHO’s vital knowledge by providing funds to write ECHO Development Notes and translate them into multiple languages!

Throughout the world, woman traditionally cook meals for their families over open fires, often with small children on their backs. Smoke from these fires creates many health hazards for both the mother and child. Women and children who inhale smoke from these fires intake the equivalent of smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Smoke inhalation and illness from these fires is a major killer of women in rural areas of developing countries.

Several inexpensive solutions, using items that are readily available in most locations, are being promoted by ECHO to help lessen the detrimental effects of over-the-fire cooking. These are the fireless cooker and the rocket stove.

Partner with us to send information to agricultural and development workers throughout the world to increase the health of women and children and lessen fuel needs.

$50 can help prevent lung disease by supporting the ECHO Community website in disseminating technical information on cook stoves which reduce smoke inhalation.

$175 will help in the design and testing of a new Appropriate Technology display used in educational training in our North Fort Myers facility.

$2,500 will cover the expense of translating a technical document into Spanish or French. These technical documents provide valuable information to our network of development workers, Peace Corps volunteers, and missionaries covering everything from Crops to Composting Toilets.

Give The Gift of Appropriate Technology >>

Give the Gift of Training Opportunities!

You can expand ECHO’s efforts to provide better access to resources in Southeast Asia!

Chaya is an extremely nutritious and hardy source of green leaves. The nutritive value of chaya is estimated by some sources to be far superior to most other leafy vegetables such as spinach, Chinese cabbage and amaranth. It is a good source of protein, calcium, phosphorus, and iron (twice as nutritious as spinach), and vitamins A and C, as well as niacin, riboflavin and thiamine. The complimentary amino acids in chaya are well balanced, which is important for those who have a diet low in protein, and for children, and for pregnant or nursing mothers.

Missionaries Rick and Anita Gutierrez are training churches in Durban, South Africa to share chaya cuttings from ECHO in rural and urban settings. They have also created videos in English and Zulu to spread the word about the potential of this amazing plant.

$35 can send a chaya cutting to someone overseas. This easily-propagated crop can provide a year’s worth of sustenance to someone suffering from HIV/AIDS and can make a tremendous difference in their nutritional battle.

$125 will sponsor a Development Worker, Peace Corp Worker or Missionary for a day in our Tropical Agriculture Development Course. These week-long courses cover a diverse segment of information focused on tropical agriculture solutions.

$135 will sponsor a Development Worker, Peace Corp Worker or Missionary for a day in our Health, Agriculture, Culture and Community Course. This course is designed to equip practitioners with the knowledge to improve the health and nutritional standards of people overseas.

Give The Gift of Training Opportunities >>

Give the Gift of Moringa!

Moringa is truly the “miracle tree.” Help us share this amazing plant with those who desperately need its nutritional benefits.

Malnutrition is a killer. General malnutrition often develops slowly, over months or years. As the body’s store of nutrients is depleted, changes begin to happen at the cellular level, affecting biochemical processes and decreasing the body’s ability to fight infections. Over time, a variety of symptoms may begin to emerge. Children who experience malnutrition during their developmental years often never fully recover. Often, people who suffer from malnutrition are more susceptible to serious illnesses.

Present in many parts of the tropics but often unrecognized for its benefits, moringa is used primarily to improve nutrition. It produces leaves, flowers, and pods, all of which are edible and nutritious. Most people in ECHO’s network are interested in the leaves, which possess an abundance of vitamins (especially A and, when raw, C), minerals (notably iron and calcium), proteins and antioxidants. Moringa seeds can also be used to purify water.

$50 gives the gift of moringa! Your donation provides us with the resources necessary to grow, harvest, store, package, and ship three packets of moringa seeds to people in need.

$100 will help support our research efforts by providing new books and material for our library. This library, housed in our North Fort Myers campus, is used daily by our technical specialists, researchers, seed bank workers, interns and network members.

Give The Gift of Moringa >>

Give the Gift of Community Gardens!

Solving a variety of problems is the unique mark of the potential of a community garden. As food insecurity, inadequate environmental education, and broken social relationships plague cities and towns throughout the world, it is the abandoned parking lots, the grassy yards of churches, and the shade trees of school playgrounds that become earthen havens of nutritious vegetables and relationship building—of restoring dignity and meeting needs.

Through schoolyard garden projects, students are exploring where the food on their plate comes from and experiencing what it takes to solve problems, work hard, and observe the life they have inherited around them. The empty schoolyard becomes an outdoor classroom, a hands-on, multisensory experience. School cafeteria plates are being supplemented with fresh vegetables and fruits from the garden, too. In the drylands of Mozambique, students in rural schools examine a sketch of a leafy vegetable, learning about its nutritional benefits for members in their community suffering from HIV/AIDS. The future of their families could be impacted by how well they cultivate nutritious crops.

$45 will help ECHO provide information and resources to help start a nutritious and educational community garden.

$75 can help to sponsor an ECHO Intern. Our interns spend each day learning about new crops, planting techniques, animal care, appropriate technology and development practices. We are currently training our 193rd intern! These interns work all over the world furthering the information sharing of ECHO.

Give The Gift of Community Gardens >>

The gift amounts listed in this catalog represent a portion or the whole cost involved for ECHO to provide that gift described. Each “gift” represents a contribution to the identified dimension of the mission of ECHO. When all requests are filled for the designated categories, additional donations will be used where needed most to provide sustainable hunger solutions.