How would your life be different if you knew that your left over food would become the next meal for someone in poverty?  Or that your trash will be reclaimed by an orphan who has nothing? This is the reality for so many impoverished people around the world who have made city landfills their home.  They depend on the trash and waste that comes from people just like you and me.

Trash Mountain Project brings children and families who live in these trash dump communities into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by addressing their spiritual, physical, emotional, and educational needs. Shortly after a mission trip to a landfill community in Honduras, Brett Durbin founded Trash Mountain, where they are already making a difference in three corners of the globe: Cambodia, the Dominican Republic and Honduras.

With aid from Kids with a Hope Ministries, Trash Mountain Santiago is building an infrastructure of educational, medicinal and provisional support for this landfill community.  Kids with a Hope began with the prison ministry of Pastor Pablo Urena were he learned about the number of families taking refuge in the refuse  Beginning with a simple phone call to Trash Mountain Project is all that it took for Brett and his team to take root in Santiago, and begin bringing hope to these children and families.

Currently, Trash Mountain has been honing its mission to bring sustainable food to this community.  Dr. Brent Nichols, the chief research developer and biologists for Trash Mountain, Nathan Downs, a youth pastor from Englewood, Florida and Chris Mammoliti, a fisheries biologist from Topeka, Kansas recently took the five-day aquaponics training course at Morning Star Fishermen.  Here they learned the skills and techniques needed to manage their own aquaponic facility in Topeka which they will start construction on in May of 2012. Once the system in Topeka is constructed, Chris and Nathan will spend the next year learning, experimenting and training others how to operate the system Once they complete a year learning and experimenting with their own design they have plans to implement the same system in the Dominican Republic.