“Water,” Nikos answers without hesitation when asked what they need most right now.

The silver medal in Tokyo filled the entire Home Village team with pride. Recognized NIKA—organic, artisanal olive oil, produced right here—owes its exceptional quality to a mixture of hard work and love for the land shown by our beneficiaries. Each fruit is touched as if touching memories. In their homelands, the earth fed them—they approach it with patience and respect. No technological shortcuts. Our NIKA is the liquid fruit of human hands—hands that know how to work, and work hard.

The autumn olive harvest is grueling and labor-intensive, but watering the trees in forty-degree heat in the middle of summer is no easier. Onur, James, and the rest of the team arrive at the farm at 6:00 AM. Once a week, they water each of the nearly thousand olive trees we’ve planted. After watering, they cover them with dry grass to prevent the sun from stealing the trees’ water. The surroundings are dry and scorching. Unbearable.

“We’re happy about the silver in Tokyo. Next year will be gold,” Nikos says with certainty, like a captain of a ferry to Piraeus.