Columbus Native Built Life in Africa After Serving in Peace Corps

COLUMBUS - Columbus native Kyle Curry, and his wife Katherine Milling, of Texas, went from working in the Peace Corps to building a permanent life in Africa supporting bee farmers. The two met at the airport in 2014, as they were heading out to begin their service time with the Peace Corps and were eventually wed in 2017. Curry says after they finished their time with the Corps, in 2016, they wanted to continue helping out in Zambia, where they had been helping the past two years. "We were working for a honey company after that. We got connected through a community I was working with in Peace Corp, and we then managed an area of the company where they had beehives distributed to communities," said Curry. Milling says after they found some management issues with the company they were working for, they decided to start their own business, Nature's Nectar, delivering bee hives to Zambia farmers.  That effort launched in January, with 1,000 of their hives currently being used. "Shift them from the traditional bee keeping of bark hive that kills the local trees. So we provide a pine hive, that's from a pine sustainable plantation in Zambia," explains Milling.  "So they last longer, it doesn't kill local trees, and it's an income generating program." The pair say their current goal is to have 50,000 hives distributed to 5,000 farmers to help them generate sustainable income. Curry says within this effort, they are helping an organization in their region's effort to restore the wildlife population of a National Park, that has seen severe levels of poaching. "There's very few animals left, so we're working with another organization,"  said Kyle. "They have a project to revitalize that national park, and a big part of that is livelihood support for communities. So that when those animals are back. They don't get poached out, and tourism could come in." Nature's Nectar will be launching a campaign to raise money for their efforts on July 9th. Learn more about their efforts in their campaign video below, or check out their website by clicking here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elyv8rvYUfs