14 June 2008

Pictures for a Purpose

There is an awesome event happening on Saturday, June 28th called Pictures for a Purpose. I am one of the photographers donating my time and talent to help raise money to fight child trafficking in Southeast Asia. Please sign your child or children up for a 20 minute sitting. It is only $30 and you can order prints from home at a very reasonable cost. The photographers are not DSC_2319profitting from this. Read more at www.picsforapurpose.org and sign up quick cause almost all the morning spots are already taken. It is being organized by this really great group I belong to called Eastside Women of Purpose.

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07 June 2008

Chocolate Party

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The chocolate party was last night and it was a huge success! We had around 50 people here and it was a lot of fun. The best news of all is that we made almost $2000 from this event alone! Yay. Thanks so much everyone! And I have been receiving checks in the mail and some at church that total nearly $1000 so far! So, we are a little more than $1000 away from our goal of $4000.

I can’t express how thrilled I am about this. To think that almost 300 cocoa farmers will benefit from this is so awesome. And it’s so much more than boots. It’s giving hope to people in extreme poverty and showing them that we care. Jesus had such a heart for the poor and I feel so strongly that as Christians it is our duty to extend that same generosity and love for people. I have this scripture printed on the chocolate guides that we have been distributing and I think it really sums up what we are trying to do:

Learn to do good, seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.          Isaiah 1:17

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To recap from previous posts, our goal is to buy 40 boots for each of 10 cocoa farming villages in West Africa (the boots cost $10 each). A team from Project Hope & Fairness is going in August and will be buying and delivering the boots themselves.

The project has only 1 week left, so for those of you collecting checks, get them in the mail soon! I’ll also be collecting checks and cash at OCC at the Women of Purpose table.

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I’d like to publicly thank the slavery-free chocolate companies that donated chocolate for this event:

Chocolove

This company is based out of Colorado. You can find their products at Target, Whole Foods, and Wild Oats (as well as other stores). Their packaging is super cute and the chocolate is very very yummy. Go to www.chocolove.com for more info.

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Sweet Earth Organic Chocolate

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This is Tom Neuhaus’ company who is also the founder of Project Hope & Fairness. He will be buying and delivering the boots for us.

They gave us so much chocolate that I used it to make chocolate fondue and wow….was it great. Their chocolate is really smooth and they also have products for baking. Go to www.sweetearthchocolates.com for more info.

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963 Coffee

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These guys provided coffee and hot cocoa for us and I must say, it was really good. The kids couldn’t get enough of the cocoa and I had two cups of coffee. It kept me up all night, but it was worth it, haha. I love this company because they have a really inspiring mission. This is what it says on the back of the cocoa:

Fair Wage:  Allows our farmers to afford necessities like food, education for their kids, and health care – all of which give them hope for a sustainable future.

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If you want to buy some, click on this coffee link and $4 will be donated to help this awesome family adopt a little girl from Ethiopia. How cool is that? Marisa wrote more about it here.

To find out more about the company go to www.963missions.com

 

TCHO

This is a new company out of San Francisco that is just super cool. I heard about it from one of the founders of Alice Chocolate (another great slavery-free chocolate company--they could not contribute but were very supportive). I am in love with Alice Chocolate’s graphics and marketing. Sooo gorgeous.

Anyway, TCHO is awesome and they were really glad to see what we were doing and to be included. Anti-slavery is a key issue for them. They sent chocolate but unfortunately it has not arrived yet. We are still waiting on the Farmer’s Market venture. In the mean time, anyone up for another party?

I think this company is brilliant, actually. Their packaging is so unique and super hip. For more info on TCHO, go to www.tcho.com