The St. Boniface Haiti Foundation, in partnership with local community leadership, formed a beekeeping cooperative, Koperatif Apikilte Fondeblan (K.A.F.) , in July of 2006. The project, made possible by gifts from the Lexington Haiti Committee and Gonzaga High School, enables farmers in Fond des Blancs to generate supplemental incomes for themselves and their families by providing them with the skills, equipment, and organizational training necessary to collectively produce and sell their own honey.

The project’s team of eight novice beekeepers received training from Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture They are responsible for making sure the hives are healthy and harvesting the honey. There are forty beehives in the cooperative. Additional beehives are added as they find them as they can be transported from other locations. The goal is to have sixty beehives in total.

Now in its second season, the project’s local leadership, which includes a project director, a sales manager and a cooperative coordinator, has expanded the cooperative’s sales to six supermarkets and visitor centers in Haiti’s capital city of Port-au-Prince. Honey sold at these higher-end locations enables the project to maximize its sales ensuring that the project is self-sustainable in the future. This year all the honey the cooperative produced was sold-out!