Owen and Christina Dargatz and their brood are pushing the boundaries of what people see as possible with a large family. (Their kids range from under 1 to 11 years old.) They traded their comfortable house in Canada for a two room shack in Guatemala with a leaky roof, but to them, this seems an upgrade (most of the time).
Instead of seeing how much they could take from the world, Christina and Owen decided to see how much they and their kids could give. Hence, “The Giving Experiment.”
One of the current projects is “Children for a better San Juan,” an environmental/educational club that focuses on teaching children to take the initiative of cleaning up their neighborhood along the shores of Lake Atitlan. They’re setting up public trash cans in the areas cleaned, and feeding the children involved a full, nutritional weekly lunch at the end of the program.
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Intro music: “Brightside of the Sun,” by Basin and Range; “Rapunzel,” by Harley Barton; “Smoke Alarm,” by Carsie Blanton.
Christina and Owen are certainly a peculiar couple, and I’m honestly still wondering if they are either total lunatics or just incredibly enlightened people –perhaps the true lies somewhere in the middle. Surely I wasn’t the only one comparing their experience with the 2016 movie Captain Fantastic.
I also think their Giving Experiment is interesting, although I definitely detect a certain influence from Owen’s missionary parents in their decision to go and ‘save’ these communities; which is something I’m not sure outsiders should be in a position to do –history teaches us again and again how many of these missionaries –whether religious or secular– ended up inflicting more harm than good.
Nevertheless I do wish them much success.