During our team’s first visit to Guatemala in 2019, we traveled to the mountains of Senaú to see the piece of land where we planned to build the Solly Ochoch, a family resource center to serve the remote villages of The Forgotten Valley. It was a transformative trip in so many ways, but the story of Gerson is one we’ll always hold close to our hearts...
We were joining the local workers on home visits, and we arrived at a home with newborn twins, as well as three older children. Almost instantly, it became clear that one of the twins, Gerson, wasn’t getting enough milk, even though the mother was nursing both him and his brother Jeremias as often as possible.
Our founder Elle had a chance to hold Gerson and when he began to cry, she miraculously saw that he had tongue tie—something none of the workers had ever seen on any baby before. Because of the tongue tie, he wasn’t able to suck effectively and was severely malnourished.
Our team showed the workers what a tongue tie looked like and videos of how to help. With the support of Solly and The Humble Village, Gerson began to receive formula through a dropper and eventually had the tie corrected through surgery.
Fast-forward a few years when our team returned to Guatemala to check on progress at the Solly Ochoch. We were overjoyed to find Gerson and Jeremias had grown into healthy, happy little boys. (Of course, we’d known this from our WhatsApp updates, but to see it in person was enough to make our hearts explode.)
And it wasn’t just the twins who were thriving. Their mother, Elena, who had been in an understandably dark place in 2019, was now positively glowing. She beamed as she showed us her family, her house, her food. She shared that she attended health and cooking classes at the Solly Ochoch every week (every week!), and she was clearly more confident and better equipped to care for her sweet family.
It’s stories like Gerson’s and Elena’s that inspire, ground, and connect us. And we hope to help write a thousand more just like theirs. Which is why we’re donating 10% of all proceeds from our new Nursing Cover directly to the Solly Ochoch. So that as you feed your own baby, you take comfort in knowing you’re also helping another mother feed hers.
10% of The Nursing Cover proceeds go to the Solly Ochoch to provide critical nutrition to malnourished mothers and babies in Guatemala | SHOP NOW
