bag with a cause

Our church has an orphanage, Springs of Hope, in Kenya and support a family of missionaries who live there and care for the children in the community. Several people from my church just got back from a trip visiting. Tonight they had a meeting at church where they shared photos and stories of their trip. My friend Jen brought back several of these amazing bags to sell here. The bags are made by a village of women who live literally in a dump. They are mostly widows and have gathered to live together in the landfill to forage through the trash for items that they can sell or craft with and then sell. They find plastic bags and cut them into strip and then crochet bags that they sell at the market. They must have hours and hours invested in the bags that they sell for approximate $4 us! With the money raised from selling the bags here (for more than $4) the women are provided with buckets filled with necessities items or perhaps luxuries... depends how you look at things. I wish we could import large amounts of the bags and really sell them fair trade so the women can really support themselves but both governments have restrictions about such things.

I'm in love with this bag. It's not the pattern I would have picked out, but it's a very typical pattern of the things the Kenya ladies make and wear. I'm seeing it as a great market bag or pool bag. I think it's going to be a great airplane bag too.. we'll see soon!

I can't get you a bag (not yet anyway) but I can give you a link to the Springs of Hope website so you can learn about this great organization.