22/04/2026
Happy Birthday to our very own, Ella Baron!
By Lorena Zaldana
A woman who has spent 21 years quietly building something extraordinary for Belize just did something else extraordinary. Alone, in the dark, she rode her bike 40 kilometres to keep people alive in Ukraine.
This is her story and why it should matter to you.
Before I share her story, I want to say this: there are rare moments when I activate my network and make a direct ask. Tonight is one of those moments. I am asking you to read this, and then like, share, comment, or donate to a cause that may not mean anything to you but means everything to the woman this post is meant to honor.
If you have visited Caves Branch Jungle Lodge, you know that garden the Caves Branch Botanical Garden. The one that stops you in your tracks the moment you arrive. The orchids hanging from every surface. The bromeliads, the cacao, the vanilla, the pineapple growing along the walkways. The hummingbirds and butterflies moving through like they own the place. The feeling that you have stepped into something alive and intentional and deeply cared for. You may have taken photos. You may have gone home and talked about it for weeks. You may have carried a cutting or a seed back with you without fully understanding why it felt so significant.
That garden is woven into the fabric of my family’s story. I have photographs that span years, from before my son was born to the birthday he just celebrated, and in so many of them that garden is the backdrop. It has held us at our most ordinary and our most sacred. I know we are not the only ones.
The person behind that beautiful space, the most magnificent background to some of our most unforgettable moments, is Ella Baron.
She founded the Caves Branch Botanical Gardens in 2008. She created the largest collection of orchids and bromeliads in all of Belize. She traveled to remote areas of this country to document plant species that had never been formally recorded. She collaborated with the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Florida and the University of Belize to protect native epiphytes. She built garden clubs in elementary schools across Belize so that Belizean children would understand the value of what grows around them. She became the only certified Tamandua rehabilitator in the country. A plant species was officially named “Alsobia Baroniae” in her honor. The Belize Audubon Society gave her their Environmental Conservation Award.
She is a woman full of life, full of love for her work, and full of love for a country she chose to call home. She has been doing this for Belize for 21 years, selflessly, and without ever asking for anything in return.
Ella was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and grew up under the Soviet Union. She has friends in Ukraine. Friends who are on the front lines. And for as long as this war has been happening she has been doing what she knows how to do, sharing posts, creating content, educating anyone who cares enough to stop and read, raising awareness in every way available to her. Consistently. Quietly. The same way she does everything.
At the 20 kilometre mark, alone in the dark, she recorded herself mid-ride, exhausted, still going. That video got three likes. In it she speaks directly and without self-pity. She said she believes that the cause she is biking for will make a difference to many. She said the money will not go to a big organization. It will go directly to a small group of people bringing food to the front lines, to hospitals, to soldiers who left parts of their bodies on the battlefield. She said she still had 20 kilometres ahead of her. That it was a little further than she thought. Then she said: “But I’m a woman. I can do it.”
She finished the ride.
And then she said something I have not been able to stop thinking about. “It doesn’t matter if it matters to you. But it matters to me. And if you care, please help me with the fundraising.”
I have never known Ella to ask for anything. She is in fact always on the giving side. And that is why her story and her cause are so important. Many of us will go through life without ever standing so resolutely in support of a cause. We so often get caught up in our own world, our own life, and don’t give a second thought to what is happening around us or in other parts of the world. I don’t say that as a criticism but as a sad truth and reality. In fact I am ashamed to admit that I too have not been paying attention, and not until today did I take the time to scroll through Ella’s page and content to understand what she is advocating for and why. That matters. Because the beauty is that Ella has made it easy for us to step out of our own world and through one click of a like, share, comment, or small donation we can all show up to support people who may be strangers to us, but they are not only Ella’s friends. They are someone’s children, spouses, fathers, and uncles.
This post is for every Belizean who has ever stepped inside that garden and felt the love in it. It is for every visitor, every tourist, every traveler who came to this country and left carrying a piece of Caves Branch in their heart without knowing the name of the woman who made it what it is. It is for everyone who was not born in Belize but chose it, claimed it, poured themselves into it and made it home. Ella did that. She arrived 21 years ago and she never stopped giving.
Today is her birthday.
And what better way or day to honor her than by sharing her story and supporting her cause. She is out there for people she loves in a country that is being destroyed. Quietly. With three likes and no fanfare.
So let’s honor her by showing up for her the way she has shown up for Belize. You do not have to care about the war. You can perhaps ask yourself what if it was Belize? Or what if it was your friends, or family in the front lines? Or at minimum you can recognize what it means when someone gives 21 years of their life to a place and then keeps giving when it costs them everything.
Come on Belize. We have 24 hours to show this extraordinary woman that her work matters, her voice matters, her sacrifice matters, her legacy matters. The woman who rode 40 kilometres alone in the dark deserves to know that we see her. And who knows, maybe together we can make a much bigger impact than Ella alone can make from our tiny but mighty country that all of us get to call home and not just a home but a safe home.
Donate if you are able. Like her posts. Comment. Share. Show up however you can, but show up. If not for the war and the people suffering through it firsthand, then show up for Ella, because her activism, her humanity, her courage…she matters.
Every like, comment, share, and dollar counts.
Her account number is 211717294, name Elvira Baron. In the notes, write Ukraine. Even a small amount matters.
Happy birthday Ella. Slava Ukraini. 🌻
Kindly be sociable and share!
