Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Sole Hope Happenings

There are some great new opportunities to support Sole Hope.  I've already blogged about some of those ways and they are listed here.  Here are two new LIMITED time opportunities.

The first thing is there are only a few more days to take advantage of a SUPER sale over at the Sole Hope Store.  It's Sole Hope's 3rd birthday you see, and to celebrate they are offering 33% off everything in their store with discount code HAPPYBDAY through the end of March.  They have some adorable baby shoes - which makes a great and purposeful gift.  

Second, here is any easy and fun way to donate $10 to Sole Hope. Basically, order a bottle of Cultivate Wine at Macaroni Grill or Ruby Tuesday now through April 7th.  Snap a pic of you with your bottle, then tweet it to  @CultivateWines at @MacaroniGrill / @RubyTuesday to support @SoleHope.

Sole Hope and I say thank you for all your support!

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Cupcake Kids - part 2

Last year I blogged that we were going to have a Cupcake Kids bake sale.  You can read that post here that explains the WHAT and the WHY of having a sale, but I was not so good about following up with pics of our sale and how it all went.  We are getting ready for our SECOND Cupcake Kids sale this year so I figured it was about time to share some pics and get people thinking about getting their kids involved in this great project this year. 

So many generous people donated LOTS of cupcakes!
The kids had a great time drumming up business from passersby.


We also had BeadforLife Jewelry for sale.

How much money did we raise? To tell you the truth I had to look it up because I couldn't remember. I thought it was like $200. We made $435 for the imprisoned children of Uganda. Selling cupcakes! We sold another $400 in BeadforLife Jewelry. It is not about the money though. I am sure there were bigger sales than ours. It was about getting kids involved in helping out others. It was about raising awareness in our community.


And in that respect it was a big success.

Looking forward to our sale again this year and to change it up a bit we are going to offer baskets made by Ugandan grannies from the Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project.   If you are interested in hosting a Cupcake Sale of your own, please visit The Cupcake Kids website for more info. and to register your sale.   Please keep in mind your sale can be as simple as a little table with cupcakes at the end of your driveway.  Every little bit helps and what a great lesson for our kids in giving to others.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

She Does Justice

www.shedoesjustice.com
I have Sole Hope to thank again for finding this great little online shop, She Does Justice.  Each month the shop features an organization and donates 10% of the profits to that organization.  And you guessed it, this month (March 2013) that organization is Sole Hope.  So many cute items to choose from - headbands - (I am loving headbands right now), infinity scarves in pretty colors and patterns, prints and canvases, and bracelets. 

Since I (gasp!) do not yet own an infinity scarf but have been wanting one, that's what I chose, in one of my favorite go-to colors, peacock.   Shipping was $4 and it arrived exactly 1 week after I placed my order.  I wore it 4 days in a row, and received lots of compliments on it.  Now I wish I had more infinity scarves.  They are perfect for untalented scarf tie-ers like me and toasty in the chilly New England spring. 

Whaddya think?
And since I ordered my scarf even more colors and patterns have been added AND a gorgeous hand stitched hoop from fellow Sole Hope Ambassador Natalie Ensor that says "hope". Hope, one of my favorite words. The hoop is only available for the month of March and ALL proceeds from sale of the hoop benefit Sole Hope.  So go, check out the shop at She Does Justice.


Thursday, March 7, 2013

Easter Candy

Just a quick reminder to think Fair Trade when it comes to Easter chocolate this year. Not always easy to find, and maybe a bit pricier than the traditional brands (not necessarily cheaper than high end chocolates) but worth knowing that it was not harvested with child and/or slave labor.  As I like to say, speak with your dollars.  If this starts a trend, the companies that do not use Fair Trade chocolate WILL start listening and hopefully change. 

I also think this is a great teaching moment for our children.  Educate them about Fair Trade.  I've taught mine so when I said that their Easter baskets might be filled with Fair Trade chocolates, their answer was an enthusiastic YES!

Check out my previous blog post here and here for ideas on where to buy Fair Trade chocolates and if you have any favorite brands, please share in the comments section.