Sole Hope Sandals

Sole Hope is a SUPER organization that provides relief from foot related diseases through education, medical care and shoes to children in Uganda and jobs for native Ugandans who sew the shoes.  All this equals HOPE!  So I am very excited that Sole Hope now has a sandal available for retail purchase for us here in the States!  Introducing the Nyabo sandal.

They come in black or brown (as you can see, I ordered the brown).  They are handmade with real leather right on the Sole Hope compound in Uganda.  There is one continuous strap that can be adjusted to your particular foot, making them extremely comfortable.  I was a little worried when I first received mine that my foot was too "fat" to make them work, but once I realized I could pull the straps, I was able to adjust them for the perfect fit.

There is a buckle toward the outside back but once I adjusted them the first time I have been able to just slip them on from that point forward.

Sizing is European but the conversion chart on the product page is very accurate.  I wear an 8.5-9 typically and was a little leary about ordering a size 39 but they fit perfectly.

The sandals are priced at $59.00 plus shipping (which for leather sandals is very comparable).  Those other sandals don't change lives though!  Head over to the Sole Hope store and order a pair.

Scooby loves them too!

My dear blog, it's been too long.  WAY TOO LONG!  Despite my lack of posts, the blog gets a good amount of traffic and I still feel very passionate about purposeful spending.  Time for me to put some effort in with new posts.  Going to start with a favorite cause of mine, Sole Hope.  Sole Hope is growing in wonderful ways.  They need a storage facility to store supplies, shoes, cut shoes waiting to be sewn, all those good things.  They have the opportunity to purchase a used shipping container for much cheaper than they could build or rent a storage facility but they need the funds to purchase this shipping container.  Here's where the purposeful spending opportunity comes in.  A fundraiser has been set up with Yankee Candle to benefit Sole Hope.  40% of your entire purchase goes right to Sole Hope!  Shop by clicking HERE.  Your order will be shipped directly to you.  Super easy!  Order some super smelling candles for the Spring! I'll keep the total raised updated below.

Thanks!

$61.20 of $6000 needed for the container has been raised so far through the Yankee Candle sale.

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!

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.

Good Little Things

It's been awhile since I featured my favorite etsy shops on the blog here.  I continue to love those shops with the addition of a new favorite, Good Little Things.  I love shopping from etsy for the one of a kind items and connections with the artists/crafters.  Those things in itself make shopping from etsy purposeful spending. 

Good Little Things sells beautifully handcrafted, one of a kind shoes and jewelry.  I never would have found this shop though had it not been for the good little things this shop is doing for Sole Hope.  For each $15 flower ring sold, $10 goes to Sole Hope (and we know what $10 means to Sole Hope, but if you don't, that means one pair of shoes to a child in need).  

I ordered two rings, one for my daughter and one for her friend.  And although the rings were custom made, they were completed and shipped to me quickly. 

Sole Hope Ring from Good Little Things.
They also offer a smaller ring,
which I think is just adorable. 
I may have to order one of those too!

Truth be told, even though I ordered this for my daughter, I have been wearing this ring a lot too!

Give Thanks, Give Hope

Lots of family gatherings will be held in the next few months.  Hopefully they will be precious times with memories made.   These times are purposeful in themselves, but here are two ideas to spread the love a little.

Order a Holiday Shoe Party kit from Sole Hope.  After the big meal, gather around the table and cut out some shoes for kids that may never get a Christmas present or a warm Thanksgiving meal.  It can be ordered here from the Sole Hope store.  Sounds like the start of a great yearly tradition to me.

Maybe cutting shoes out isn't for you, or maybe you want to do even more! How about asking your guests to bring an item that Sole Hope uses in their jigger removals in Africa, such as: 

• large safety pins
• medical gloves
• gauze wrap
• emla cream (or other topical numbing cream)
• stickers for children
• monetary donations to purchase basins and soap in country.

Supplies should be sent to:

Sole Hope
P.O. Box 1492
Asheville, NC 28802

So c'mon, give thanks, give HOPE!

Party with a Purpose

My youngest sister is getting married soon and as we began planning her bridal shower I started to think of ways we could "go purposeful"with the shower.   Not wanting to steal the spotlight from my sis on this important occasion, I ran all my ideas through her first, but she is a Social Worker with a heart for helping others so she was on board immediately. 

Donations in lieu of favors are one way and are becoming more popular at Weddings and showers.  We decided that instead of trinkets, we would make a donation to Sole Hope.  A cheap $1 favor in my opinion just makes for clutter and with a big guest list can get quite pricey.  We thought of what a real impact a $50 donation could make to Sole Hope.  That would sponsor 5 pairs of shoes! 

Here is what we came up with for our fall bridal shower. On the back side the mission of Sole Hope is explained.

 

Here are some tips/ideas for doing this for an event:

• Pick a cause or charity that is significant to the persons being honored or the occasion. 
• I wanted each person to go home with the Sole Hope name and mission so we did do individual favors and candy, but you could just print out a piece of paper stating that in lieu of favors a donation was made to xyz charity and place it in a pretty frame on the gift table.
• Consider a fair trade favor- chocolates or coffee.

Now for the best part!  I have 20 extra fall cardstock printed Sole Hope favors.  I will give them to the first person to make a $25 or more donation to Sole Hope, http://www.solehope.com/donate/  .  Please put in the comments of your donation "party favors - Carissa" , then in the comments below let me know you have done so (I will verify with Sole Hope) with your e-mail address and I will contact you and mail them to you.  Bags and candy NOT included.

Would also love your ideas or suggestions for ways to purposefully party!  More posts & pics to follow about the other things we did to make this shower purposeful.

Sole Hope, again

I've blogged about Sole Hope before, you can read all about my daughter's African themed birthday party where we had a shoe cutting party here.  Here is a video that explains what Sole Hope is all about.  Please watch and share!  Then do some purposeful and fun shopping by checking out Sole Hope's store.

Sole Hope

This year for my daughter’s birthday, she wanted to have an African theme.   I LOVE planning my kids’ birthday parties around a theme so early on we ordered a slew of animal print favors from Oriental Trading, picked up some National Geographic giraffe note cards in the dollar bin at Michael’s to use as invitations and the planning began.

The goody bags

We weren’t sure what kind of activity we would do or what charity she wanted to raise money for at the party. I googled different ideas and there were several that were possibilities but we just weren’t sure how to tie it all in together.  I read several adoption blogs and one evening was reading a blog of someone that was at an adoption conference and it included pictures of the booth for their organization and next to them was a booth for Sole Hope.  I went to their website and read all about them.  Children in eastern Africa suffer from jiggers, awful insects that burrow into childrens feet and make them sick.  Sole Hope helps in two ways.   First, they provide employment to widows through teaching them the trade of shoemaking.  Second, the shoes are then given to children in western Africa that have no shoes.  The children are also educated through a story book about why wearing shoes are important.   If that isn't wonderful enough, the soles are made from recycled tires, the heels are made from recycled plastic (such as milk jugs), recycled jeans and fabric.

I thought their shoe-party kits would be perfect for my daughter’s birthday party.  I ordered the kit for 10 people and it arrived within a few days. We watched the video and made a list of supplies we would need. I saved milk jugs and jeans and bought ½ yards of fabrics we liked that were on clearance. 

Prepping for the party, cutting out shoe pieces from old jeans.

Pieces ready to go!

A friend who had been to Africa donated Shetenges (wrap skirts) for the girls to wear. Everyone had a blast! Even though this is a serious and sad problem, the kids got the message of hope that SoleHope is all about. They even got the meaning of the name. It was great to see all the moms come pick their kids up and the first thing they asked were, “Can I see what you guys made?” and I got to explain to them all about this great organization.

Decorating the denim and tracing their chosen fabric.

Shoe Making Checklist

The completed product ready to send to Sole Hope to make 1 pair of shoes.

The cake- simple to make with printed sugar paper, available where cake supplies are sold.

The kids watched the SoleHope promo video before making the shoes so they understood the what and why of the organization.  I think that was the best part of the whole party. It really opened their eyes to why we were doing this.  Instead of gifts, the girls made donations to sponsor the shoes. In all we were able to make and sponsor 12 pairs of shoes!

We made hair ties out of the fabric to remind everyone of the shoes we cut out.

Would you like to have a SoleHope birthday party or a shoe cutting party for you church or organization?  I would be happy to answer any questions and help out in anyway.