John Brown built Farmer Brown Insurance Agency over 30 years, protecting contractors and families across all 50 states. A significant portion of his clients are Spanish-speaking: Mexican-Americans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, Cubans, and Venezuelans doing roofing and small contracting work. That connection led him to open an office in Colombia. And once he was there, he saw something he couldn’t ignore. Rural schools with almost no funding. Children whose daily breakfast budget was one dollar. Communities just outside Medellín’s tax base, receiving nothing from the city’s resources. In 2021, he founded Farmer Brown Cares to address what he witnessed firsthand.
Schools Beyond the City’s Reach
The foundation works in four rural schools around Copacabana, just outside Medellín Children arrive at schools that lack technology, supplies, and support. Teachers stretch thin. Parents, many of whom never had access to education themselves, focus on survival rather than long-term planning. The gap between opportunity and reality is wide. Farmer Brown Cares stepped into it with a direct approach: place teachers on site, equip classrooms with technology, and keep students fed so learning holds through the afternoon.
The work is concrete. The foundation employs three full-time music teachers and four full-time English teachers. They have purchased 95 laptops for students. They built three playgrounds. They fixed the roof of one school. John pays for all the internet so children can actually use the computers. English lessons use IXL, an online learning platform where students answer questions and track progress. Last year, Farmer Brown Cares became one of the only private charities to surpass one million questions answered in English, a tenfold increase from the previous year. Programming classes use CodeMonkey so children learn while playing. Music instruction happens on Saturdays, combining singing, instruments, dancing, and expression. Progress shows in simple measures. Students speak with confidence. Families keep sending their children back.
Where Education Meets Nutrition
But learning requires more than lessons. Hunger interrupts attention. So the foundation built a farm. Children now care for three hens they named Pluki, Josefina, and Piolina. They tend a vegetable garden they call Huerta Infantil La Veta. They feed George and Oreo, two mini pigs that teach empathy and responsibility. The foundation also partners with a school for children with autism, providing fresh fruit daily for seventy-five cents per child. Every Sunday, a local greengrocer named Don Pacho selects seasonal fruit and delivers it to the schools. The foundation understood early that education and nutrition close the same circle. A child who eats well learns well. A child who cares for animals learns compassion.
The foundation does not work alone. Yamaha Colombia has donated 12 guitars to support music education. Work with NEDISCO and Climbers for the Future extends support to more than 200 people with special needs. Collaboration with Anahita School empowers over 40 women heads of households through macramé training, giving them skills and a path to income. Each partnership adds another layer to what began as a single school and has grown into something larger.
The foundation recently opened a social center with music lessons, a science room, and space for children to access internet and computers on equal footing. Ten to fifteen percent of the students are making strong academic strides, and the foundation is securing scholarships to send them to better schools. Breaking the cycle of poverty remains difficult. But some children are responding. And those children are beginning to chart different paths.
How Insurance Funds Classrooms
Support flows from an unexpected source. Farmer Brown Insurance Agency, the company John built over three decades, stands behind the foundation as its sole donor. The agency and its employees have contributed almost $200,000 so far. A registered 501(c)(3) charity in the United States sends funds directly to the operation in Colombia, where one hundred percent goes toward the children. There is no bureaucratic overhead, no grant applications, no fundraising fatigue. A donation can be put to use the same day it arrives. With presence in all 50 states, the agency’s success serving contractors and families funds classrooms, teachers, laptops, and fresh fruit for children 2,500 miles away.
The schools sit on mountaintops overlooking the valley toward Medellín. The setting is stunning. The children are sweet. And for John, the return on investment cannot be measured in dollars. He started visiting Colombia in 2018 and launched the charity with one school. Now there are four. “It’s something I’m prouder of than anything I’ve done in my life,” he says. “When you give, you can’t lose. Give a child an education and no one can ever take it away. The time is now.”
Farmer Brown Cares is now welcoming outside donors. Contributions are fully tax-deductible through the 501(c)(3). Donations of funds, supplies, or classroom technology strengthen daily lessons. Sponsorship of students or programs allows expansion to more schools. The foundation responds directly through vida@farmerbrown.com or +57 304 140 6997. Participation starts at farmerbrowncares.org. A donation sent becomes a laptop opened, a guitar played, fresh fruit shared, and a lesson spoken aloud in English, carried home by a child on a mountaintop overlooking Medellín.