The Daily Camera did a Side Bar article on Provident Living:
The screaming headline reminded me of a story a Detroit Paper did on our family when I was fifteen.
“Louisville family prepared to face the end times”
My parents were interviewed in 1985 in a crawl space where we stored our years supply of food. The reporter noted that our family was sitting in our “bomb shelter” during the interview, and the photographer took some pictures of me with my siblings which showed up along with the article. I was Jenny Tripp, aged 15, back then, and if I remember correctly I think they quoted me in the story.
Anyway, this was a flash back to a time when the arms race had everyone a little nervous about nuclear bombs, particularly my dad who followed current events closely. I don’t know how the paper found our family, but they found us a fascinating bunch of “End of the world” nuts to report about.
I was really pleased however that Lisa Marshall mentioned the economics of Provident Living as well as the fact that this is simply a smart way to life if you have children. Recent natural disasters have definitely upped everyones awareness of the need for 72 hour kits, and with the economy a little wobbly, it doesn’t hurt to have some food tucked away in case of lose of a job.
I liked the secondary headline, it said:
“The Mormon practice of provident living also aids in disasters”
For me the bottom line of Food Storage is simply obedience to our living prophets. They have couseled and commanded us to have this years supply, and so we have it. But as we have lived the Provident Life (And in saying that I don’t want it interpreted that we live this life perfectly. We still have a ways to go in certain areas of living providently), I have found numerous reasons why this lifestyle is a profound experience for those who live it. Perhaps the greatest blessing of all is simply increased health from eating such healthy foods.
Here is the text of the article: (My comments are in bold) – and the article was at the bottom of the cover page with a nice picture of three of my children.
By Lisa Marshall, Camera Staff Writer
November 20, 2005
LOUISVILLE — Take a peek in the cupboards of Jenny Hatch’s remarkably well-stocked two-bedroom condo and you may, for a moment, wonder what decade it is.
The kitchen shelves bulge with tall bins of whole grains, which she hand-grinds into flour almost daily for baking, as well as jars of whole beans she simmers for days before serving or storing. In the basement, shelves are piled high with bags of coal — to fire a Dutch oven in case of a power outage — and 55-gallon drums full of water. Beneath her daughters’ two twin beds are stacks of boxes containing cans of dehydrated fruits, powdered milk and legumes.
In all, there is enough food, water and fuel here to sustain her family of seven for an entire year in case of a catastrophic event. And she has no doubt that day will come.
“I believe in the prophecies and I have a testimony that we are living in the end times,” says Hatch, 36, a life-long member of the Church of Latter-day Saints. “We will see the day that we live on what we produce. We are not going to have the luxury of going to the store. It is just smart to be prepared.”
The notion of self-sufficiency, or what Mormons call “provident living,” has been an integral part of the Church of Latter-day Saints doctrine since its beginning, when scripture stressed: “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.”
In 1937, in the midst of the Great Depression, Mormon leaders upped the importance of self-sufficiency, declaring that every household should store enough food, clothing and fuel to last at least one year. In 1970, some began to warn of what might come for those who didn’t follow the advice.
“The Lord has warned us of famines, but the righteous will have listened to prophets and stored at least a year’s supply of survival food,” said Mormon Prophet Ezra Taft Benson, in an oft-quoted 1973 writing.
In recent years, the church has begun distributing booklets and index cards that outline exactly how to start a home food supply, and what it contains. Across the United States and Canada, it now hosts dozens of food storehouses, milk-processing plants and canneries — including one in Aurora — where church members and their friends can come to stock up on nonperishable foods with long shelf-lives.
Stan Gordon, bishop of the Louisville Ward of the Church of Latter-day Saints, says church members abide by the recommendation in varying degrees. To some who move a lot it’s not practical. For others, it’s not economically possible.
“We teach it and we preach it, but there is no way to twist people’s arms about it,” Gordon says.
He and his wife Brenda take care to always have enough food and supplies to sustain their family of seven for a year. Aside from scriptural prophecy, there are many practical reasons to do so, they say. The Gordons point out that when Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, members of the Church of Latter-day Saints were some of the first to arrive in the region with truckloads of supplies, long before federal agencies did.
Even in the event of a personal crisis, they say, an ample supply of stored food can make the difference between making it independently, or having to rely on government welfare.
“It doesn’t have to be a huge disaster,” says Jenny Hatch. “You can just be laid off from your job.”
Hatch said it took her about 10 years to accumulate a one-year-supply for she, her husband Paul, and their five children ages 3 to 17. She values it at about $4,000, plus about $2,000 for equipment like a wheat grinder, a wheat-grass juicer and a hand-crank oatmeal maker, that would allow her to keep cooking and baking even if there were no electricity.
Doomsday scenario aside, she already uses it all anyway, rotating stored food into her kitchen and visiting the Aurora cannery quarterly to replenish the supply.
“You can make a batch of muffins for a dollar, and a loaf of bread for 25 cents,” she says. “The economics of this lifestyle are really family-friendly and budget-friendly.”
And if the worst does happen?
“As a mother, I never want to look at one of my kids and say, ‘I don’t have anything to feed you’,” she says. “Even if there is nothing at the stores and commerce is shut down for whatever reason, I can feed my family and know that no one else has to do it for me.”
Beginning in January, Jenny Hatch will host a series of free, public workshops on Provident Living for Mormons and non-Mormons alike. Topics will include how to cook and bake inexpensively with natural whole foods, and how to create a 72-hour emergency preparedness kit. For more information, e-mail Hatch at jenny@naturalfamilyco.com.

On the front page of The Boulder Daily Camera a story appeared today focusing on my faith. (You need to register for access to the whole article)
I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and the article did a wonderful job of outlining the basics of our faith, and gave a great forum for a couple of us to defend our faith.
The Camera Editor used several quotes from a two hour interview I did a couple weeks ago with Lisa Marshall.
Here are some examples from the article: (My quotes are in bold type)
“Only those who meet certain requirements — such as providing proof they have given their 10 percent tithing and vowing that they abstain from drugs and alcohol — can gain access to the temples where weddings, or “sealings,” take place. Non-Mormons cannot enter the temple at all, meaning in-laws, and non-Mormon friends and family often are excluded from the temple ceremony when loved ones get married. When Gordon’s own son recently got married to a convert whose parents are not Mormon, they had to wait outside.
“Anybody can go in as long as they qualify,” Gordon stresses. “It’s basically just about living a good, clean life.”
Even among Mormons, only about 50 percent have temple access.
Jenny Hatch is among them.
“This is one of the most prized possessions I have,” says Hatch, 35, pulling her laminated temple-access card from her purse. “Before they let you in, they want to know that you are convicted in your heart.”
At the modest two-bedroom condominium in Louisville where Jenny and her husband Paul live with their five children, ages 3 to 17, each day begins and ends with the children taking turns reading from thick, leather-bound scripture. Monday nights are reserved for Family Home Evening, where the kids gather around the kitchen table for faith-based games, lessons and songs. Saturdays are spent baking food for the coming week from scratch — in keeping with the Mormon doctrine of self-sufficiency — and Sundays, from 10 a.m. to noon, are spent in church where members (not paid ministers) are expected to take turns delivering the sermon.
Once a month, Jenny and Paul travel to the Mormon temple in Denver, where they perform “proxy-work” — standing in as man and wife — for church members’ dead ancestors who were never properly “sealed,” or married in the temple. Without that, according to church doctrine, they may not be reunited in heaven. The same is done for dead family members of LDS faithful who were never baptized.
“It is the great equalizer for families who came on this earth when the gospel was not there yet,” Hatch says. “It is very sweet work.””
“Higher powers
Local Mormons stress that, despite many assumptions to the contrary, they are indeed Christians. But many of their beliefs stand apart from even the most conservative denominations.
The faith dates back to 1820, when Joseph Smith, then 14, was in his upstate New York home praying when, according to the founding story, he was visited by the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They told him not to choose any faith, but rather, to discover his own. Three years later, according to Mormon scripture, an angel named Moroni returned to Smith and told him of an ancient record written on gold plates and buried in a nearby hill. Those plates, which told of an ancient race of Israelites who had made their way to North America, were ultimately translated into what we know now as the Book of Mormon.
As with any religion, its beliefs are vast and complex. But at its core, the church believes itself to be the “restored,” living church of Jesus Christ. Smith is believed to have been just the first of many prophets who, to this day, direct the church through divine revelations.
“We believe there is a living prophet today — not only does the prophet receive revelation, but each of us do,” says Gordon.
And in the afterlife, some humans actually will become Gods.
“We believe that we can become like our Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father — that we can become Gods,” Hatch says. “That is seen as presumptuous in some people’s minds.””
“When asked about polygamy, many local Mormons vigorously defend the practice in the past as a fact of life across religions throughout Biblical times. “It is not a new concept we invented,” Bishop Stan Gordon says.
It served its purpose at the time, they say, providing shelter and support for women and children, and driving up the Mormon population at a time when it was threatened. But it has been condemned by the church since 1890, they stress, and those practicing it today will be excommunicated.
Nonetheless, some say that if divine prophecy called on Mormons to take up the practice again — perhaps if there were a war and there were few men left at home — they would not reject the notion outright.
“I personally believe polygamy is about taking care of women and children,” Jenny Hatch says. “It is more about providing for families than anything else.””
I think Lisa did an excellent job on the article, and although she balanced it with “Anti-Mormon views”, which does tend to annoy those of us who are faithful LDS, I understand why she felt the need to balance her article, and was not offended by those views being in the paper.
Jenny Hatch

Yesterday I wrote a response to a review of a new book about charter schools and it was published on the Wall Street Journal Web Site…
Go Here
Here is a link to the original review.
And a link to the book Our School
Our School : The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea, and the School That Beat the Odds
by Joanne Jacobs
Amazon reviews:
From Publishers Weekly
Jacobs had been an education-beat journalist for more than 15 years before she decided to quit and find out what was really going on with the charter school movement.
In 2001, she started volunteering at Downtown College Prep (DCP), a first-year charter school with 100 ninth graders from predominantly poor, Mexican-American families in San Jose, Calif. The cofounders of the school had a clear mission: to take failing students and prepare them to attend college and do well.
Students would have to break with gang culture and adopt DCP’s mantra: ganas (motivation), orgullo (pride) and communidad (community). Unlike the formulaic, for-profit charter schools of businessmen like Chris Whittle (see the review of Crash Course in PW, Aug. 29), DCP is enthusiastically experimental.
When something’s not working (e.g., trying to teach algebra when kids don’t know fractions), they try something else. As Jacobs tells the story of DCP’s amazingly committed teachers and their (mostly) courageous students, even hardcore opponents of charter schools may soften.
Some useful data (DCP’s student stats, funding summaries) and a listing of resources for people thinking of starting a charter school round out this fascinating case study. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
“Our School is wonderfully written and wonderfully informative. I cannot think of another book that provides such a close and honest look at a successful charter school serving immigrant kids in grave danger of striking out in American life. The fascinating story that Joanne Jacobs tells zips along like a good novel, but it also delivers an important and optimistic message to educators who want to rescue kids.”–Abigail Thernstrom, co-author of No Excuses and America in Black and White
“Joanne Jacobs has written a ground-breaking book about the most interesting, and potentially important, change in American schooling in the last 15 years. If the rapid growth of charter schools continues, every district in the country will soon have one, and everyone needs to know, as Jacobs explains, where they came from and why they are needed.”–Jay Mathews, Washington Post education columnist, author of Harvard Schmarvard, Escalante, and Class Struggle
“Our School is today’s Up the Down Staircase. It’s not often a book about my profession gets it right.”–Robert Wright, teacher, Morrill Middle School, San Jose, California
“The more true tales we read about successful charter schools – and the gritty determination and endless frustration of those who yearn to start them – the more American education is going to improve. We need constructive examples of real people making a real difference with real kids in schools that work, schools that didn’t even exist before. Joanne Jacobs has unearthed such an example, and she tells its story in a vivid, insightful, and inspiring way.”–Chester E. Finn, Jr., Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and President, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
“Joanne Jacobs is an experienced journalist who is sensitive to her subjects and has a gift of storytelling. This is a profound book on a fascinating school in the 21st century.”–Richard Colvin, Director of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University
I pray every family can find the school option that works best for each child.
Jenny Hatch
Text of my comment:
My Children’s Education
Jenny Hatch – Louisville, Colo.
My children have been attending a Charter School for the past three years.
Before this we homeschooled for a couple years, tried the public school (but pulled the children out because of an overemphasis on diversity studies and an underemphasis on the basics), and we really agonized to know what was best for our five children.
I am happy to report that this K-12 charter really feels right for our family. The limitations of home school were really embodied in a lack of classroom competition which is a normal and healthy means for students to stretch themselves academically. During homeschool my children worked every day on the curriculums that we purchased for them, but they had no incentive to go above and beyond the basics I required.
An excellent Character Education curriculum is emphasized every day at the charter. I’ve determined that when the schools are focusing on teaching the students how to have good character, they don’t have to worry so much about discrimination based on differences. Excellent art, music, and sports programs round out this approach and offer our children opportunities which were impossible while we were homeschooling.
I believe Charters are a wonderful opportunity for those families who have access to them, and we feel fortunate to have one within driving distance of our home.

“Female candidates have triumphed in Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections, with one bidding to become the new parliament’s speaker.
After a delay in counting of more than a month, official results show women secured seats ahead of male candidates in a quarter of the 34 provinces, while in one a woman was outright winner.”
Let FREEDOM ring!
Jenny Hatch