Welcome!

We are Community First, a nonprofit that is passionate about connecting & empowering changemakers through education, STEM fields, and social innovation. Learn about our work, and how you can become a part of the solution while creating relationships and building community.

Gather your friends to empower mothers!

Host a fundraising workshop with our team of trainers and learn about aquaponics!

Watch how we build our family aquaponic systems

Learn about our aquaponic systems and how we build them using a localized supply chain and recycled goods. Visit our YouTube channel!

Call for Change Makers: Volunteers & Advisors

Come and help us in Cambodia, or join our Council of Advisors in California to drive the change!

Our story

Our story starts ten years ago, when Community First Co-Founder & President Pierre Mainguy came to Cambodia with the goal of creating sustainable economic development for subsistence farmers. In 2009, this culminated in completion of a half-acre training center, which today is home to the farm school at the Sen Sok Campus.

​Since that time, Community First has brought clean drinking water to over 13,000 people, trained hundreds of young adults and farmed almost a million school lunches as part of our classroom permaculture program. This was made possible by an extensive network of donors and service clubs like Rotary.

Since then, Community First has developed a rugged aquaponic system for off-grid communities which empowers people to take control of these issues and their lives by both raising fish (a source of protein) and farming fresh produce & vegetables.

Today, we're expanding our initial pilot test to more families and growing our training capacity at the farm school. We have developed a commercial strategy to help these families sell their produce, ensuring the sustainability of our work, and our supporters' impact in the lives of the people.

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Abundance awaits

Aquaponics grows both edible fish and fresh produce while recycling water. As a result, it empowers the most vulnerable in the rural communities of Cambodia to provide better nutrition and develop new sources of income for their families. Today, Community First is training women of all ages and setting their families up with an entirely scalable aquaponic family startup kit in a greenhouse, right next to their homes.

Learn more about aquaponics

Highlights from the blog

Pierre Mainguy & Romain Rak Nominated for a Rotary Humanitarian STAR Award

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News the Farm School: ​New family builds and brand new concrete fish tanks with a window!

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Our family aquaponic system is on display at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical  Gardens!

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Our donors & partners

Community First is entirely donor-supported and is not endowed. We are grateful for the awesome organizations and individuals that have made these projects possible, and the people of Sen Sok are looking forward to their continued support, and yours! We want to thank and highlight the following institutional & corporate sponsors:

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