Julie Shaw and Josh Bennett

IIn 1975, after having traveled to Africa to visit farms, a group of Peel region farmers including Bob Bell, Neil Armstrong, David Armstrong, Ralph Dunton, Joe Gray, Brian Nealy and Dick Pallet decided to start a charity focusing on farm aid to poor regions. Their goals were to build a charity organization with minimal administration costs, based on a model of education and growth, such that their proceeds would be a “hand up, not a hand out.”

In 1976 the S.H.A.R.E. Agriculture Foundation was founded with a single project in mind: to bring a herd of cattle to a community in Mossoro, Brazil. A Milton couple by the name of Hugh and Melba Beaty sold their dairy herd, and supervised the project in Mossoro for three years.

Many new positive developments occurred from the initial Mossoro project. Much of the milk produced every day by the herd at the University was donated to an orphanage across the street. To this day this orphanage receives a daily supply of fresh milk. Once a few S.H.A.R.E. sponsored graduates from a local community had established a full working farm, the first offspring were donated to other farms in the community. Shortly thereafter the community began to sell offspring to the upper class farmers of Brazil.

Today S.H.A.R.E has 22 operating projects in Brazil, Belize, and El Salvador. Every project is based on the same model as the original Mossoro project, in which members of the community are given the training, and responsibility to ensure the sustainability of the project. Every project is designed to assist communities in development, rather than to simply give one time hand outs.
— Josh Bennett