To support and expand the mushroom industry in West Africa by

Bringing Bernard Bempah to the United States and Shiitake Mushrooms to Ghana

Please make your tax deductible contribution today!

The summer of 2007 we went to Ghana, West Africa, as farmer-to-farmer volunteers. We saw the oyster mushroom farmers there struggling to make a living with very few resources.

We met Bernard Bempah, founder and director of BemCom Youth Enterprises/Association, a non-profit, non-traditional agriculture training center, teaching skills to about 1200 people a year, 500 in oyster mushrooms, most of them women.

A nation-wide contamination of spawn (available from only one source) significantly undermined the entire industry. Bernard wants to manufacture his own spawn and to introduce shiitakes as a second mushroom crop. We have pledged our resources and a portion of our sales to help Bernard support and expand the mushroom industry in Ghana and to introduce this low-cost protein food into the protein-hungry Ghanaian diet.

It will take about $20,000 to bring Bernard Bempah, founder and director of BemCom Youth Enterprises/Association and his associate, Godwin Baokye to the US. Mushrooms in Ghana will take them to visit shiitake farms, will equip a laboratory to cultivate spawn for oyster mushrooms and shiitakes, and provide training materials for Ghanaian farmers. If you can contribute even a small amount, it will help to change the mushroom production in Ghana.

Where our volunteer efforts helped maybe 200 people, Bernard, with his vision, commitment, experience and technical knowledge, can help thousands of people in his country. Read more below.

The Magical Child Foundation, (www.magicalchild.org), a non-profit (501c-3) organization, is partnering with Mushrooms in Ghana and your donation will be tax deductible.

Please donate with a credit card at 1-800-792-0053, online www.mushroomsinghana.org or www.magicalchild.org or by sending a check made out to Magical Child Foundation, For: Mushrooms in Ghana, to Lost Creek Mushroom Farm, PO Box 520, Perkins, OK 74059