Kiva loan August 2011

Whoopee!  I have been able to make another loan through Kiva as a result of sales in my little shop.  I am incredibly grateful to all that help me do this and it makes all the hard work worthwhile.

The latest loan, the third now, has been given to Sanoat.  She is 38, married and a mother of 5 children who lives and works in Yavan, Tajikistan.  Her husband works abroad: with a husband who also works away from home for brief periods of time, I cannot imagine the difficulties of trying to raise 5 children alone. 

I was moved by her request to buy seed to grow the vegetables she raises and sells to make a living, and whilst her photograph is beautiful and lush, I felt it also depicted a woman who looked a little overwhelmed by her surroundings.  I am honored to be able to help support her request.

When making a loan, the hope is that it will be repaid as agreed so that it can be lent to someone else in need, but it is always possible given the dire situation of some of the borrowers, that circumstances may work against them making it impossible to repay the loan.  That has indeed happened to the first loan made to a farmer in Kenya. This loan is currently delinquent (Kiva's word) which I am assuming is due to the severe drought.  I hope to receive more information and if/when I do I will post it here.

'Do not loan more than you can afford to give away' is very wise advice and I make these loans in that spirit.  If the money comes back, that's wonderful because it means the loan improved someones life as it was meant to.

American Red Cross donation August 2011

The images out of the Horn of Africa are heartbreaking and it is hard to believe that such a disaster has happened once again.  With the economy being so bad around much of the world, private donations are harder to come by than ever as family budgets tighten, including my own, which is why I created By My Touch.  I wanted to try to earn the money so that we could continue to donate to charity.

This latest donation was given to the American Red Cross to aid relief efforts for those suffering the drought.  Where I live in the Pacific Northwest where we have copious amounts of rain, it can be hard to 'step into the shoes' so to speak of those who have walked for days or weeks to find food and water to survive, but as a parent I can relate to how it feels to see your child suffering and even to experience the loss of a child.  For these reasons, this particular donation is especially meaningful to me and, once again, I am grateful to my customers for their support of my little shops and their purchases which enable me to make these donations.

Kiva loan July 2011

I was delighted to be able to make a second loan through Kiva yesterday.  With so many wonderful people asking for a little help it can be hard to pick just one, so the way I do it is to find a person and story that speak to me.  I know it's not scientific, but I've always found that the only decisions I regret are when I don't follow my gut.  I really do believe that the eyes are the windows of the soul, even when you can only see them through a photo and when I saw Anthony's, I felt an immediate connection and am honored to be able to support him.

Antony Ndirangu has practiced farming in Ndunyu Njeru town in Kenya for the last 11 years. He is 44 years old, married to Mirriam and they have five school-going children. He's a great example of how these microloans through Kiva change lives: Antony hopes to become a leading farmer in his area, and is working towards this steadily with our help. He has had 3 loans previously and repaid them all as agreed, so it was an easy decision to support him in his request to buy a dairy cow to boost his farming income. 

Here is the receipt for that donation:

This has been one of the best organizations I've ever donated to.  If you'd like to help others help themselves, I encourage you to check out www.kiva.org for yourself. 

Thank you to my customers for your support of my little Etsy shops, and therefore your support of people like Antony.

Eco Friendly Cards

Gosh, where did the time go.  It's been two months since I posted a blog and a lots happened! 

I was worn out in April and took a break from everything prior to a trip to Europe to recharge our batteries.  We visited family and friends before heading to Switzerland for a week.  We'd planned to hike in the mountains and stop off along the train route at cities we'd never visited before heading down to the Matterhorn, but unfortunately a bacterial infection made us both so sick that we couldn't do much more than lie in bed and look at the fabulous view out of the windows.  We love Switzerland no matter the weather or our health, so if you're going to be ill, that's the place to do it for us and we had a wonderful time in spite of things.

Once we were home again, I was laid low for 3 more weeks but emerged full of enthusiasm to make my new shop 'Eco Friendly Cards' as full and gorgeous as can be.  I've been working hard on it ever since and now have 116 handmade cards for sale as of today ... phew! 

I've been investigating making a light box as I'm having trouble with shadows, so that's my project for the next week and I'll blog on it shortly.

In the meantime, the latest update as far as charitable donations is that I have $12.50 set aside towards the next Kiva microloan - that's halfway there, so my goal before the end of June is to have raised the rest and made one donation if not two!

Train ride from Interlaken to Grindelwald in the Bernese Oberland

March is Red Cross Month

I just discovered that March every year is Red Cross month, so I'm even more delighted to have chosen this charity for my donation.

I also just found out that 91% of every dollar is donated to humanitarian services and programs. Given it is not supported by the governement and relies on donations to function, that seems like a pretty fair percentage.

I'm getting closer ...

Well, what a wonderful and slightly crazy day. I was having breakfast and checking emails, at which point I squealed with delight because I'd sold something. Then up popped several more emails - I'd sold 3 more items. I did a happy dance in my chair :)

Although each item was part of my 40% off sale, I was able to increase my donation total to $56. I'm still aiming for $100, so a few more sales and I'll make it. I'm excited just at the thought!

This is one of the first totes I made, and lots of people 'hearted' it, so this is my picture for today to help me remember how far I've come since starting this adventure just over a year ago.

I've now received permission from the American Red Cross to use their name in my efforts to raise money to help with the relief efforts in Japan. I feel very fortunate to have received this so quickly as they are, understandably, totally overwhelmed.

I feel that no matter how much I raise, it won't be as much as I'd like to give. I am constantly promoting my shop, and have had so many people feature my items in treasuries (150 so far!) and many 'hearts' on my items/shop, but very few people actually purchase anything. Add to that the fact that the items I've sold have already got 40% off them, means my net profits are quite small. However, I know that I have $33.95 to donate so far. Perhaps by putting this out into the ether will mean that my efforts will be repaid by lots of sales before the end of March. My goal is to raise at least $100 to donate which is either lots of bags in the sales, or one or two regular bags.

So dear blog, I think this is called 'The Secret' - visualizing what you want so that it can happen. Let's hope it works!

Learning curve ...

A fellow Etsian suggested that I could post the receipts for the donations/loans on my blog, which I thought was an excellent idea so that is what I shall do. I have already posted it for the donation to Kiva in February which in and of itself was a steep learning curve.

Having captured the receipt, I learned how to use the 'snipping' tool to capture just the image which I then saved as a jpeg (kiss to Tony for helping me!). Then I opened it in 'paint' and painted out the transaction number and my address for security. Not sure what anyone could do with the info but it seemed wise as this blog is open to the world.

Anyway, I feel much better today having found a way to show legitimacy and offer peace of mind to those that buy from my shops :)

p.s. for anyone reading this that might wonder, as I only started this blog a few days ago, I will not post last year's receipts. If anyone would like 'proof' I'm happy to provide it.

Etsy rules about charitable donations ...

It seems there are shops on Etsy that claim to donate money to charity from their sales, but don't actually do it.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by this, but I was. I'm 47 but am still blissfully naive at times!

That said, I have become aware of some Etsy rules regarding these donations and am abiding by them - I have contacted the charities I wish to donate/loan to to request permission to use their name in my 'fundraising' efforts. I have received said permission from Kiva.org and am awaiting the same from the Red Cross. I cannot therefore donate to the Red Cross relief fund for Japan until I have received that permission (which is maddening) so have gone ahead in the knowledge that there's no reason not to grant it and have listed this charity now so that my customers know where the net profits will go to.

It's all arse-about- face, but there we go. I have followed the rules, I list full details in my Etsy profile and do, truly, donate the money.

I'm not sure what else I'm supposed to do to prove this, but am left feeling frustrated tonight and upset that I may loose sales because people suspect I'm lying.

When people are in such dire need of urgent help, I find myself jumping through hoops designed by others, and which slow the whole process down. Clarity is hard to come across tonight in Etsy and there are a lot of other shop owners feeling the same way.

My heart is heavy.

Spring cleaning my shop ...

Today was a very exciting day - I couldn't wait to get started on the redesign of my Etsy shop so that it truly expressed what I am trying to achieve. I want my shop to be a destination for eco-friendly, fair trade ethical bags, purses and cards so I decided to have a massive clearance sale to (hopefully!) sell off everything that does not fit with that intention.

I've been designing and creating the items in my shop full time for a year now, and have, thus far donated $485 to charity. A great start, but I intend to donate a lot more over the coming years and this spring cleaning spree not only creates a cohesive statement about who I am and what I'm passionate about, but it means that every purchase does good for our wonderful planet, those that benefit through the donation of my net profits, and puts a smile on the face of someone whose found something they love!

So, dear blog, whilst I am writing this only to myself just now, I'm glad to have this written reminder of the day I finally had clarity on what it is I've been working so hard to achieve:)