Pioneer Craft Market

It was over a week ago now but I wanted to share a couple of photos with you from the Pioneer Craft Market held at the local church in Cheltenham. Our little group gets together every Friday morning and a lot of knitting, crochet and hand sewing gets done while we chat and have a cuppa together. Twice a year we hold a market and sell some of the things we have made over the year and the money raised goes to a variety of causes such as: Flying Doctors, The Fred Hollows Foundation, SIDS and Kids and the Leprosy Foundation. This time round we managed to raise about $1500 which gave us all a bit of a warm glow!!

Even the sun shined for us!

My friend Carrie and I shared a stall with me selling my craft supplies and she selling some of the lovely Suubi village jewellery and bags for HUG (Help Us Grow) I can proudly tell you that the HUG stall (added to sales made after the OLA Church mass on Sunday) made over $600! which is pretty substantial considering every cent raised goes directly to the maker of the item – every item is labelled and all sales written down so we know who it goes to.

All in all a very satisfying day!!

Suubi paper bead bracelets

These are some of the bracelets made by the Suubi ladies in Uganda. The beads are made from rolled up strips from magazines and glue then threaded onto wire – so bright and colourful, they make great gifts. We had these on sale at the HUG (Help Us Grow) party we held a couple of years ago at my friend Carrie’s house.

In the meantime the ladies have been very busy making all kinds of other craft items and I hope we will be able to have a stall at the November Pioneer Craft Market and sell lots of their craft items for them. Hopefully we can raise some funds to send back to the village.

Suubi paper bead bracelets

SUUBI (n.): hope

I love the idea that making things by hand can bring about connections and understanding globally.

WD&DC

Right now, there are hundreds of organizations in the states that sell products made by villagers from third world countries. Buying their products, they say, will provide a family the means to send their kids to school, to put food on their table or to put hope in their hearts.

Right now, I have plenty of products from these types of organizations in my closet at home. And to be honest, I probably couldn’t tell you much about where the proceeds from my purchases went. And until today, I didn’t really care. A good cause is a good cause.

Right now, there are tons of villagers making these products that, half a world away, Americans are purchasing. From half a world away, it’s easy to equate all these villagers in our minds as equally deserving of our money.

And right now, I’d like to question that mind set.

Today, I…

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