From Leland to Guatemala City with Planting Seeds International

The power of community, education, and growth

By Meridian Parsons | March 14, 2026

Editor's Note: This is a student journalism piece from our 2026 Voices of the Next Generation issue.

Planting Seeds International (PSI) is a groundbreaking organization focused on eradicating barriers for Guatemalan youth at the fundamental level. Through innovative early education programs across Guatemala, they are helping children receive crucial educational development.

PSI believes that “early childhood education is the foundation to break the cycle of poverty.” The nonprofit has created 13 preschools across Guatemala and currently has 97 percent of their graduates passing first grade, compared to the country-wide passing rate of only 78 percent.

PSI’s success comes through play-based learning, while prioritizing that “[p]arents need to be supported as the primary educators of their children.” The organization even has teachers provide individualized training sessions for parents to help their children.

“I’ve been in Guatemala on and off for 15 years, since 2010,” says Mac Phillips, co-executive director of PSI. “I originally came to do some volunteer work, but once I came, it became very clear that there are some educational gaps that students had. … Being able to expand and scale this methodology throughout the country really helps provide educational opportunity in rural communities and urban communities where that opportunity necessarily wouldn’t exist.”

A Trip of a Lifetime

Though a Guatemalan nonprofit may seem half a world away, PSI actually has ties to Leelanau County. Thanks to a connection between PSI, Northwestern Michigan College, Leelanau Investing for Teens (LIFT), and Leland Public School, there have been three trips to visit Planting Seeds. Most recently a group of Leland High School students traveled to Guatemala in 2025.

I was one of those students.

In our rural community, there are very limited opportunities for students to see different parts of the world. But PSI provided an opportunity for students to come see the impact dedicated work can do. Getting to go to Guatemala and work with PSI not only allowed me to experience a place I never had before, but it also showed me that there’s more to the world than just what you know. This trip gave me the opportunity to view experiences differently and reevaluate my idea of what’s attainable for my future.

I grew up going to Montessori school, which focuses on child-led, hands-on learning. These concepts are so similar to the Planting Seeds methodology of “child-centered, activity based, early childhood education.” When I got to visit the kids at San Lucas preschool, I saw materials identical to those I had grown up using.

We got to play and learn with the preschoolers at their pace, and one girl in particular clung to me. She would just follow me around or stare at me dotingly, if I went to their painting table, she would follow. Next, she took me to their “construction zone” where we built towers and demolished them, only to rebuild them once again. We played here for a while as I helped her stabilize our forts, and she taught me the word for truck, camión, and other new words.

Later our student group from Leland would plan out a lesson for the children, so that we could teach them something in return.

On the Ground

When we went to the community center in Zone 3 of Guatemala City—one of the capital’s poorest neighborhoods—I was surprised at the sight. The building was a tall, multifloored building with its entry way slightly sunken in relation to the open room ahead.

A few steps up from the entrance was a large space with a ping-pong table and a shelf for board games on the left. The further I walked, the more I began to realize that the space was repositionable. The walls could slide around and be moved to make smaller classrooms. As we walked up the stairs you could see a smaller portion of the floor branching off into a library nook with multicolored chairs. Further up there was a dance-floor type of exercise room full of gym equipment, as well as a larger room for groups to meet in.

At the top of the building the roof was caged in, with spaces for basketball and soccer games. The design of the building itself was mesmerizing; I was in awe of its versatility.

After our tour we ventured back downstairs to the main floor, where we helped set up long tables for lunch. We ate with a number of community members, providing an opportunity to connect cross-culturally. I sat next to an older woman who told me about where she had grown up, and how she visits the community center regularly for English classes and to play with her granddaughter. She told me about how when she was a kid there was nothing like this for her—this was a safe space her grandchildren could come to play and learn.

Funding the Future

Visiting Guatemala is one of my favorite things I’ve experienced. We saw captivating landscapes, volcanoes, and historical ruins such as Iximche, but what made our trip memorable were the people who lead our tours, our bus driver who sat through a six-hour traffic jam with us, a mother I met at the community center who told me about her dreams to be a doctor and study in the U.S., and the PSI directors who entertained me in long conversations about their pasts and passions for this program.

As a nonprofit organization, Planting Seeds relies on philanthropic efforts from the U.S and Canada rather than more local donors since “there isn’t the same level of philanthropy in Guatemala as there is in the United States,” according to Phillips. “I think trying to build really authentic experiences for people to get to know and understand the realities that are happening here in Guatemala is really important. So we can build kind of cross-cultural citizens and really understand the problems that people in Guatemala are facing and how to support them.”

Phillips adds that PSI prioritizes ethical sponsorship. One way they do this is through their Champions program, where you donate $30 a month to become a “Champion” of education, while receiving updates on their work through occasional personalized stories about different community members.

Sharon Workman, a Traverse City local, serves on the board of PSI. She began her journey with another organization called Safe Passage in 2006, which led her to connect with Planting Seeds. Workman, who has background in family psychology and child abuse prevention, was a volunteer with PSI until she became a board member in 2016 working on the developmental committee to help implement family nurturing and parenting programing.

As a board member, Workman says she “was highly active in organizing Traverse City residents to support this work. We organized fundraisers and really helped involve more and more people in the efforts. … I think it would be really helpful for a new generation of people to learn about it and get involved.”

At least one new generation has benefitted: Leland students witnessed firsthand PSI’s belief in the power of education to create more prosperous futures in both Guatemala and northern Michigan.

To learn more about Planting Seeds International, visit plantingseedsinternational.org.