Several weeks ago, 7News showed you an innovative outreach program called the Belize Camping Experience.
It is an initiative headed by Alexander Perez in which farmers from Northern and Central Belize allow at-risk Belize City children to learn about farming.
It provides a different way of life for these children, but most importantly, it takes them out of the dangerous environment that they live in constantly.
This weekend, there will be a harvesting event for these crops that these children have actively participated in growing, and the director is inviting the public to witness their hard work.
Here's what he told us about the significance of the event:
Alexander Perez, Director - Belize Camping Experience
"The event that is happening tomorrow is the harvest. What we have been doing over the 4 months is to get the corn ready to be harvested and now it is time to harvest and what going to happen on Saturday is that we want to harvest our corn in less time as possible as we can. We are getting ready to tomorrow and we are hoping to line up 10-15 combines or harvester; they are huge machines that are already moving. We already have 3 on the 20 acres of corn ready to be harvested tomorrow."
Daniel Ortiz
"What is so special about this harvest sir?"
Alexander Perez, Director - Belize Camping Experience
"What is so special is that a harvest like this has never been done before where you gather so much machinery in 20 acres of corn to harvest. That takes a lot of finances, takes a lot of effort but the farmer has been responding to the call that as farmers they can do something for our city especially our city kids. What you are going to see tomorrow is something that has never been done before - as less minutes as possible to get that corn harvested."
Daniel Ortiz
"Are the children going to participate?"
Alexander Perez, Director - Belize Camping Experience
"Yes, we would love to take all our thousand kids out there but we are going to have at least 60-40 kids watching these big machines harvesting this corn at 2pm."
"Everyone is invited. At 1pm the machines will line up and by 2pm we want to give the go ahead and we want to harvest that corn in as few minutes as possible."
The harvest takes place tomorrow at 2 p.m. in Banana Bank. According to the director, there is a second harvest which is planned for October 11 in the village of San Carlos.
