Bread Bakery (Panadería) for Santa Rita

Background

Our church, the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo, is located in the municipality of Santa Rita (Copán), Honduras. We serve the community in Santa Rita and 36 small mission churches in the surrounding mountains. With the help of the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras and several Episcopal churches in the United States of America (including Church of the Holy Comforter in Vienna, VA; Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Staunton, VA; and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge, LA), we have nearly completed construction of our church.

One of the primary visions of the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras is to encourage its churches to become self-sustainable through a variety of activities, including the creation of profitable micro-enterprises that can channel funds into efforts to maintain and expand church facilities and develop social service programs to support the needs of parishioners and others.

Consistent with the sustainability vision, our church proposes the development of a bread bakery in Santa Rita. The bakery would produce a variety of breads for sandwiches and sweet breads, pastries and cookies. Our goods would complement the region’s love of coffee drinking. The Copán region is produces Honduras’ best coffee and particularly some of the finest organic coffee in the world.

The Market

The bread bakery would be constructed behind the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo in Santa Rita on church property. It would primarily serve the town of Santa Rita, which has an estimated population of 2,750 people. Santa Rita is only five miles from the municipality of Copán Ruinas, which has a population estimated at 6,500. While Santa Rita is a hub of local commercial activity, Copán Ruinas is tourist town that caters to foreign travelers who come to visit the nearby Mayan ruins, the Macaw Bird Park & Nature Reserve, and stay at scenic hotels such as the Hacienda San Lucas mountain lodge.

There are no bakeries in either Santa Rita or Copán Ruinas. The closest bakery is located in the town of La Entrada, which is an hour’s drive from Santa Rita. There is another bakery in the town of Santa Rosa, which is about one and half hours from Santa Rita.

There have been at least three separate attempts to establish a bakery in Copán Ruinas. They have not succeeded due either to poor management or the fact that the local population mostly eats tortillas. The tourist market is cyclical, and so it by itself is unable to sustain sufficient demand for baked goods. The fact that property costs are extremely expensive in Copán Ruinas adds to the risk of starting any business in that town.

The situation in Santa Rita is different. Santa Rita is not a tourist town, although it benefits from its proximity to Copán Ruinas. It is a commercial town that serves the needs of the local Honduran population and many villages in the mountains. This segment of the market is more constant and predictable.

Given the demand for baked goods produced in La Entrada and Santa Rosa, we believe that a bakery in Santa Rita could compete successfully for this business, certainly in terms of price, and even expand the market. Our geographic proximity to the consumers would give us a strategic advantage, as would our personal relationships of members of our community to government representatives, businesses leaders and families in our area.

An example of the kind of market opportunities that exist for our bakery is the annual Conference on Honduras that attracts more than 250 people to Copán Ruinas in October. This is a four-day event, and we have now secured a promise from the conference organizer, projecthonduras.com, to purchase all their baked goods from our bakery.

We intend to work through the projecthonduras.com network to help us develop business contacts and market opportunities in Copán Ruinas, including numerous hotels, restaurants and shops in town.

Sumary of Objectives

1. Establish a bread bakery micro-enterprise in Santa Rita in order to help make the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo self-sustainable.

2. Develop a consumer market for the bakery based on the local Honduran population and the growing tourist market of Copán Ruinas.

3. Create economic benefits for the parishioners involved in the bakery and help establish social service programs for the parish and other parishes served by our church.

4. Target niche markets not served by the bakeries in La Entrada and Santa Rosa.

Action Items

1. Gain approval from the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras to proceed with the project and develop a general plan to coordinate activities.

2. Develop a budget for construction of the building and purchase of the oven(s) and initial materials/supplies.

3. Obtain the necessary funding for the project.

4. Proceed with construction of a building and purchase of equipment.

Proposal Prepared by Francisco Villela and Olman Santos of Iglesia del Espiritu Santo, Santa Rosa, Honduras in partnership with Marco Cáceres, Church of the Holy Comforter, Vienna, VA

Holy Comforter's Mission in Honduras

When Holy Comforter sent its first mission team to Honduras in May 2003, we had no idea of what we wanted to do in that country. Since then, we have sent two large teams back to Honduras, specifically to the towns of Copan Ruinas and Santa Rita.

The first team led a joint mission with a group from Hope Episcopal Church of Melbourne, FL during the summer of 2004. The second team went during the summer of 2005. We have a third team scheduled to go this summer.

During the past two years, we have focused on construction projects and activities such as Vacation Bible School and distributing toothbrushes/toothpaste. The intent has been to assist our sister congregation at the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo in Santa Rita complete construction of their church and to begin to develop a personal relationship with the community there, as well as a few mission church communities in the nearby mountains.

At the same time, we have been providing funds to support Concepcion Santos, who is the Deacon of the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo and also to two young seminarians in Copan Ruinas. None of these individuals receive funding from the Diocese of Honduras, so we thought it made sense to provide something to enable them to provide for their families and thus be better able to serve the spiritual and social needs of their communities.

Separate (but related) to the work we have been doing in Santa Rita is our sponsorship of a medical clinic for the poor which we helped build in 2004. This clinic, which opened in the summer of 2005, is now serving an average of nearly 400 people per month. Holy Comforter is providing $50 per month to help pay for the salary of Dr. Lagos and his nurse.

We are working in partnership with other donors to support this clinic. The sponsorship does not cover all of the expenses of the clinic, so Dr. Lagos charges about $2.30 per consultation. The fee includes any needed medications -- medications which Holy Comforter has donated in the past and hopes to continue doing in the future.

A central part of the vision behind the medical clinic is to attract medical brigades from the US to use the facility as a homebase from which to send small teams into the nearby mountains to provide education, basic healthcare, including eye and ear examinations. The clinic itself may be used by these medical brigades for performing minor surgery.

We fully expect that with this flow of physicians and nurses from the US, we will develop some good contacts that will eventually lead to attracting support to help us build a small hospital next to the clinic.

On the agenda for this year in Santa Rita are plans to build a small school behind the Iglegisa del Espiritu Santo and a small bakery. We are also going to try and fund the purchase of a pickup truck so that Concepcion will have regular access to the 36 mountain mission churches that he serves.

Currently, Concepcion is getting around on a small motorbike donated by a gentleman named Bill McMahan of Baton Rouge, LA. The pickup truck would allow for transport of people,
materials and equipment. The mission churches are made up of some of the poorest in the world – people with an average income of $300 per year (… less than $1 per day). These people have almost no contact with the outside world, and that one pickup truck would go a long way to improving this situation. We're looking to spend about $5,000 for the pickup or perhaps have someone donate the vehicle.

The school is important for obvious reasons. Most the children in the Copan Ruinas/Santa Rita (and surrounding mountains) area do not attend school or go for only a couple of years. In Honduras, there is only a requirement to attend up to sixth grade. But most children either live too far away from a school, can't afford the materials, or must remain at home to work and help support their family.

The bakery is a high priority project because it would allow the Episcopal community in Santa Rita to start to become self-sustainable. The profit gained from the venture would help support the physical maintenance of the church and also be used for social service projects in Santa Rita and the 36 mountain communities.

The beauty of the work we are doing in Santa Rita is that we are doing it in partnership with two other Episcopal churches – Trinity Episcopal in Staunton, VA and Trinity Episcopal in Baton Rouge, LA. In addition, there is Bill McMahan and Deborah Matherne and two other ladies, who have begun a sewing project with the women from the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo. One of the ladies Deborah may bring into our circle is Elizabeth Morgan, who authored the book "Sewing Church Linens" (Morehouse Publishing).

The point here is that groups and individuals have come together naturally and are working together to support the Episcopal community in the Santa Rita/Copan Ruinas area. We have established an online forum called the "Copan Support Forum" (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/copan-support) and a Blog for the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo (http://www.concepcionsa.blogspot.com). We are communicating weekly and coordinating mission trips so that we truly understand (not guess) the needs of the people whom we're trying to serve. We are working together, rather than blindly in isolation.

During Holy Comforter's second mission to Honduras in the summer of 2004, part of our team focused on painting the medical clinic in Copan Ruinas, while the other part organized and led a four-day leadership training workshop at a hotel conference room in town. The workshop was attended by about 60 priests and seminarians from the Diocese of Honduras and Bishop Lloyd Allen. This was almost the total number of Episcopal priests and seminarians in the country.

A segment of the workshop was led by Suzanne Shultz of Five Talents (http://www.fivetalents.org). The focus of this segment was how to develop one's own micro-enterprise. We are hoping to find a way to work with Five Talents on the bakery project for Santa Rita. Otherwise, though, we would still try to fund the project directly.

Probably the most important problem that needs to be addressed in the Santa Rita/Copan Ruinas areas, as well as in all of Honduras, is access to clean water. In October 2006, projecthonduras.com, which is run by a parishioner of Holy Comforter, will present its seventh annual Conference on Honduras in Copan Ruinas. The focus of the event will be education, healthcare, and community building.

The central theme this year, however, will be developing an integrated, comprehensive clean water strategy for Honduras. One or two full days of the conference will be dedicated to clean water. This segment will be presented in partnership with Pure Water for the World (http://www.purewaterfortheworld.org) of Rutland, VT and various Rotary Clubs from the US and Honduras. Other clean water organizations such as Water Missions International (http://www.watermissions.org) of Charleston, SC are currently being approached to join the effort.

Marco
Church of the Holy Comforter
Vienna, VA

The Sewing Project

I took the ladies [in Santa Rita] a sewing machine and iron. Mary, Concepcion's wife, took to machine sewing like she had done it for years, even though she had never used a machine before. As I was leaving, she was teaching the others.

All of the vestments and appointments we are constructing are planned especially for Copan. For example, they are all washable using either the products and processes the ladies are accustomed to using, or with a little special instruction I have provided and the addition of a new (to them) product or two which I have furnished.

The ladies with whom I am working are from both Espiritu Santo and Quebracho. All the ladies in our little group did the hand work on their altar linens. We are not finished. I plan to have all four colors for the altars finished for Easter as well as some cassock-albs and surplices. That will be the altars for both Espirtu Santo and Quebracho, as I paid for the altar (or "mesa") for Quebracho to be built when I was there. The carpenter promised it's completion this week.

I would like for everyone to know that the vestment fabrics and the altar linen fabric and pieces were donated by Elizabeth Morgan of Queensbury, NY. My internet searching found her in November or December. I explained my little project and asked her to mentor me through it. Though I have extensive background in construction of the softer kind (fabrics), I had never done full sets of vestments from scratch. Well, she is the lady who wrote the book (literally, note: Sewing Church Linens by Elizabeth Morgan; Morehouse Publishing). She very graciously has helped me make all of this come true and if that is not enough, she has made very generous donations of fabric, instructions, advice and so much more of the things we need.

I have another angel of assistance in Carol Poplaski of Vernon, NJ. She is a customer of Elizabeth's who had the beautiful white embroidered liturgical fabric you saw over the green superfrontal and under the lectern hanging. She had rescued the fabric (over 20 yards of it) some 10 years ago and had been looking for the proper home for it ever since. Carol was thrilled to donate it to the project. Concepcion and the ladies LOVE it. I think it is perfect for our purposes.

This little project is not finished, but rather just beginning. I am very much aware of the other mission churches in the area. In fact, I had scheduled a "tour" of some of them with Concepcion for this week to get pictures and see how we could start to include them in the project. The tour company's rep would not agree to take Concepcion and I to all of them. I guess I'll need camping gear and a burro to get to some of them.

My first two weeks will be on Roatan working with Nurse Peggy and her Clinica Esperanza, coach Enrique Santo and his futbol boys, and hopefully, Iglesia Episcopal San Pedro del Mar. Then, I will be back in Copan working with our group of ladies on our soft construction. I think I may stay through the holiday.

Deborah Matherne

Concepcion the Visionary

The last night I was in Copan Ruinas, Missy's team, Concepcion, and I all went out to dinner at Carnitas and had a great time. Concepcion was accompanying the team each morning to Sesesmil Primero.

Concepcion seemed extremely upbeat to me... more than usual. He clearly has a vision for his church, and now he's starting to see that anything is possible, given the coordinated support they are receiving from all of us. I think it really helps to have individuals and teams regularly visiting, worshipping, and working with the people of the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo. That personal and continuing connection helps them feel they are not alone, and that's huge.

As I've pondered to understand the true substance of mission work, I've come to the conclusion that "letting people know they are not alone, that we are all one in the spirit" is what it's all about. Very simple, and very powerful.

Concepcion showed me where he plans to construct the sacristy, and he showed me all the new space they now have in the back... thanks to Trinity Staunton's hard work clearing all the brush back there and building the retaining wall. That definitely looked like some strenuous labor was involved! Great job.

With the additional land in the back, now I can see where you could build a small school and also a bakery. Talk about "sustainable development". This is it. We are supporting a church that is feeding its congregation spiritually. It will eventually educate its children and be in a position to provide economic support to itself and the 36 mission churches that it serves.

On top of that, there is the medical clinic in Copan Ruinas which Holy Comforter funded... so there you have access to basic healthcare as well.

Marco
Church of the Holy Comforter
Vienna, VA

The Pews

The wooden pews for the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo look great. They were originally in the church at Tela, but Bishop Allen had them donated to Espiritu Santo. Concepcion and volunteers from the parish repaired them and cleaned them up. They replace the plastic lawn chairs that had previously been used. The lawn chairs can now be used for additional seating for special events and also to be shared with the missions churches whenever there is a need.

The photo shows the pews in October 2005 shortly after they arrived.

Marco
Church of the Holy Comforter
Vienna, VA

Concepcion Named Deacon, Fr. Mejia Relocated to Copan Ruinas

Concepcion Santos Abrego (see photo) was recently named Deacon of the Iglesia de Espiritu Santo. Fr. Arnoldo Mejia, who is the Dean of the Diocese of Honduras' former "Copan Region" is now living with his family in Copan Ruinas. Fr. Mejia had been based in La Entrada, which is about an hour's drive from Santa Rita/Copan Ruinas.

Now the Iglesia del Espiritu Santo will have the benefit of a Priest and a Deacon living close by. The Diocese of Honduras has decided to split the former Copan Region in half. The half closer to La Entrada will continue to be called the Copan Region, while the Santa Rita/Copan Ruinas half will now be known as the "Maya Region".

There are plans to eventually build an Episcopal church in Copan Ruinas. The land has already been purchased. What is needed are funds for the construction. There exists a small Episcopal community in Copan Ruinas... about 40 people. The community meets in the homes of some of the parishioners. It has two seminarians that Holy Comforter is sponsoring with a stipend of $50 per month each.

Marco
Church of the Holy Comforter
Vienna, VA

The Proposed Bread Bakery

A project that the Church of the Holy Comforter is interested in supporting is a micro-enterprise project, specifically a bread bakery in Santa Rita. Concepcion and others with whom I spoke in Santa Rita believe a bakery would allow their church to quickly move in the direction of becoming self-sustainable. They believe that there is a siginificant market for a bread bakery in Santa Rita and Copan Ruinas, and I tend to agree.

I've done initial market research in Copan Ruinas, talking to a number of my contacts there who own hotels and restaurants. The closest bakery at the moment is located in La Entrada, which is a 1-hour drive from Copan Ruinas/Santa Rita.

I understand the importance of writing a business plan for this effort, and I've advised Concepcion that he needs to submit a draft proposal for the idea before we can really get moving on our end.

Holy Comforter will be sending a small mission team to Copan Ruinas during the latter half of July 2006. The team will be in Copan Ruinas primarily to take an intensive course in Spanish so we can better support the Santa Rita community. But it also plans to do some work in Santa Rita with Concepcion. I would like to see if we could tie our mission this year to helping make the bakery a reality sooner rather than later.

Marco
Church of the Holy Comforter
Vienna, VA