Monday, October 10, 2016

Day 10: It's Getting Cold Outside

The change in weather combined with all the talk about the cinch saks gave the girls an idea.

Homelessness is a considerable problem where live. Every time we go to the grocery store, you can be certain there will be people asking for help at every parking lot exit. I think it's because my girls grew up in a small town and weren't used to witnessing homelessness this frequently, it bothers them very much.

Add that to the fact that it's getting cold outside and the girls wanted to do something to help.

Enter our first "Ripple Project."

Quin came up with this logo for our project

This year, the girls gave our homeschool the name. "St. Teresa's Academy" in honor of St. Teresa of Calcutta ( Mother Teresa's title after being canonized a saint).

The quote of St. Teresa's they selected to guide our school is "I alone cannot change the world but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples."

Ripple Projects will be our attempt to be a bit more consistent with our charity work. I'm hoping it makes the kids realize that they can truly have an important impact on our community and it's their responsibility to do so.

So, back to the project.

Being that they felt the Cinch Saks were made very well, are quite weather resistant and are easy to transport, they hatched the idea of filling them up with supplies and distributing them to the homeless.

Our goal is 10.

Talking about what kind of products would be helpful got the girls thinking about what life must really be like for those on the street. They ended up choosing items that addressed: hygiene, health, food, pets & comfort and came up with a list. We've seen a similar project where folks suggest items to buy at the Dollar Tree. But our budget is tight so we looked online and then headed to Costco to see if we could buy things in bulk cheaper.





We walked Costco, photographing the items on their list and taking note of price & quantities. Then it was home for all that math by hand. Turns out, we found many items cheaper at Costco than Dollar Tree.

We'll also be using "super couponing" to get some of the supplies for next to nothing.



The plan is this: each bag costs $20. Our commission on the $20 is $5. We will use that commission money to purchase supplies. Additionally, because we're the party hostess, we'll use that free product credit for our $200 party to also add to the till to buy supplies.

After announcing it on my private facebook page, we immediately got a donation of 20 handknit hats for the bags from a lovely friend here in Oregon! How wonderful!

A bit later, a message from another friend offering some canned food to include in the saks. Amazing!

Finally, we stopped at Joann's to find fleece on sale for $2.99/yd plus we had a coupon. We bought a few yards of camo fleece that the girls will sew into scarves.

So to date, we have handknit hats, warm fleece scarves and some canned food.

I hadn't thought about the potential "ripples" our project might cause in others. People are so incredibly generous. In a time when we have such awful headlines in the news with this election, it's nice for the girls to see this positive side of humanity up close.

We're still hopeful to get 10 of the cinch saks purchased as donation to the project but we realize that $20 may be more than some folks can or would like to contribute. Therefore, we are happy to take any donation toward the cinch saks. It can be paypaled to our project at mylifewithpurls at gmail.com.

If you'd like to sponsor a complete Comfort Sak at $20, here's a link to the Thirty One website. We thought the camo color would be perfect.



The skies the limit on this project! Our goal is 10 but wouldn't it be incredible if we could do 20 or more?!

We're still having fun with this Toteschooling Project. If you want to join us for the special $1 consultant fee that ends in just a few days, here's a link.
Becky




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