Georgette's Grounds and Gifts

Consider doing some holiday shopping at Georgette's Grounds and Gifts of Maumee! This is a great little store, with a great little story.

Georgette's Grounds and Gifts is one of the many projects that have been born of The Sunshine Children's Home. Founded by Georgette and Roy Engler, a local couple who raised five disabled children and vowed to begin an organization to help the disabled and their families have access to vital services, The Sunshine Children's Home currently has sixteen group homes and serves 110 clients living in their own homes, all of whom have disabilities and many of whom have Downs Syndrome. The Sunshine Children's Home not only provides basic services, but works specifically to offer a great quality of life for the disabled and their families, and values and creates meaningful employment opportunities for those with disabilities. Georgette's Grounds and Gifts, a coffee shop and fair trade store in downtown Maumee, is such an opportunity. On any given day, you can visit the store and find several of Sunshine Children's Home's clients assisting customers and keeping the premises sparkling clean and inviting. The atmosphere is warm and cozy, their food is great, and just being there invites you to slow down and remember the good things that life is all about.

Georgette's serves fair trade coffee, as well as sells the coffee by bulk. The fair trade store sells gorgeous crafts, soaps, jewelry, CDs from around the world, and, at this time of year, lovely creches and Christmas ornaments. You don't have to live in northwest Ohio to shop at Georgette's; many of their products are displayed online. 

Check out the following web sites:

www.sunshinefnd.com

www.georgettes.org

Renee's Quilted Creations

While I was on retreat at Grailville, I had the good fortune to attend a seminar given by the Reverend Dr. Renee Keels, on spirituality and quilting. Not only did several of us have a wonderful time assembling "mini quilts" and experiencing the quilting process as a sort of meditative prayer practice, but we all became acquainted with Rev. Renee's gorgeous hand made bags.

Many of her "black and white bags", as she calls them, have vibrant accent colors to off set the blacks and whites. She also does beautiful bags made by wrapping fabric around, of all things, clothe line rope, and then sewing the ropes in basket style hand bags, like the one shown above.

Be sure and check out Rev. Renee's hand bags online at www.reneesquiltedcreations.com . You can order bags, specialty liturgical stoles, housewares and quilts from her website.

I'll Be There...Will You?

The Holiday Open House at the Polish Art Center in Hamtramck features their annual szopka (handmade Christmas altars) competition plus, music, hors d'oeuvres and nice things to buy for the holidays while helping Polish artisans.

Remember, our sisters and brothers in Eastern Europe are still emerging from decades of economic, artistic and spiritual oppression. Buying their gorgeous arts and crafts is a way of helping Eastern Europeans get back on their feet. 

Holiday Open House

Saturday, November 21 11 am-5 pm

Sunday November 22 11 am- 5 pm

Polish Art Center 

9539 Joseph Campau Boulevard

Hamtramck, Michigan 48212

www.polartcenter.com

More Double Duty Donations...

Every fall I order socks from our friends at Kullakas women's knitting cooperative down in La Paz, Bolivia, to give to various charities. This year, I ordered the socks through Nest, a not-for-profit organization helping women's crafts cooperatives, founded and operated by Rebecca Kousky. Rebecca has graciously agreed to highlight Kullakas products. A small percentage of the sales from Kullakas goes to Nest, to help Rebecca give funding to even more women's crafts cooperatives so they can buy essential supplies and get "off the ground and running" as a business.

The socks will be going to a local charity this year, Hannah's Socks. Hannah is the cutest little girl you could imagine, with her own not-for-profit to boot! Hannah served at a soup kitchen with her parents on Thanksgiving, and saw that one of their guests was not wearing socks even though it was freezing outside. She told her mother she'd like to give the man her own socks so he could stay warm. Hannah's Socks took off from there, collecting and distributing over 40,000 pairs of socks to individuals in need in both Toledo and Cincinnati. 

So, once again, we thank Kullakas for providing us with hand knit, ultra-warm socks, to provide in turn to those in need.

Check out these two really wonderful organizations:

www.buildanest.com

www.hannahssocks.org

Rug Show Weekend at Adopt a Native Elder

If you're like me, you're probably NOT going to make it out this year to Park City, Utah this year for the 20th Annual Navajo Rug Show sponsored by the Adopt-a-Native Elder Program. However, I can think of few charities as deserving of your attention at Adopt-a-Native Elder, which was founded by artist Linda Myers to assist Native elders, our national treasures, maintain their traditional life style on the reservation with dignity and purpose.

In their own words Adopt-a-Native Elder was "established in the Native tradition of the Giveaway Circle... support(ing) Elders living on the Navajo Nation. Each spring and fall volunteers deliver food, clothing, basic medicines and medical supplies to help the Elders sustain themselves as they maintain their traditional way of life. We provide wool yarn so they can continue weaving their rugs. The Rug Show is an important opportunity for the Weavers to sell their rugs and support their families. The event is also an exceptional window into the culture and traditions of the Navajo People."

Adopt-a-Native Elder looks for volunteers every year to travel out to the Rug Show and assist in all aspects of putting on and running the show and sale. An important aspect of the Rug Sale is, of course, purchasing the rugs. Even if you are unable to make it out to the show, you can go on line and check out their web site www.anelder.org and look up "Rug Sale" and "Catalogue" for the Rug Sale, and purchase a rug to be shipped to you.

Consider "adopting" a Native elder. For not much more than what winds up being about $10 a month, you can be assured that your elder will receive spring and fall food boxes that are important supplements to their resources. What better way to honor the indigenous people of this country than to respect, honor and assist their treasured elders.

www.anelder.org

A Weekend at Grailville

I just got back from a long weekend at Grailville, in Loveland, Ohio northeast of Cincinnati. I was there for the annual national conference to explore membership with the Grail, an international women's organization. Attending were eighty other women from around the United States and from as far away as Australia, Italy and South Africa; black, white, Latina and Native American, in their thirties through their nineties, of various religious and spiritual backgrounds. We danced, created art, sang together, ate great food--much of it locally grown--and attended planning sessions, talks and spiritual practice groups together. This is a group of women I could find myself at home with. 

The mission of the Grail and many of its core values are near and dear to my heart. Their mission is to empower women to work for world transformation by:

--building bridges among diverse faith traditions and spiritual paths

--advancing peace, justice and a world free from military dominance

--fostering international exchange and solidarity

--challenging economic systems that put at risk the most vulnerable, especially women and children

--creating communities for a sustainable future and

--celebrating the arts as a means for personal and societal transformation.

Any of this sound familiar?

Their core values include spirituality, women's empowerment, dignity of persons, justice, community, care of the earth, creativity, bridge building and a living integration of spiritual search, social transformation, ecological sustainability and a release of women's creative energy throughout the world. 

Check them out yourself at www.grail-us.org .