giving + mending: from the heart + for the heart

I have always enjoyed gift giving.  Always.  When I think I have a winner, it nearly kills me to have to wait until the designated holiday.  I want to give it right then.  Though it can be one of the most daunting tasks if you don't know what to buy, I adore embracing the challenge + scouring shops + sites of all sorts until I reach that beautiful moment of finding the perfect gift.  

Then I can't wait to wrap it.  Though my talents will never quite match my mum's, I love to make the outside just as pretty +/or exciting as the inside.  As someone who enjoys tearing into wrapping paper almost as much as she enjoys the actual gift, I want the outer wrappings to reflect the inner wonder.

My love for giving is not just materialistic, however; I know that some of the most appreciated + heartfelt gifts can't be wrapped at all. 

Enter: Christmas 2012.

Mum's boss, an unbelievably inspirational + classy woman, gifted a few of the most respectable + treasured gifts I have ever known.  Rather than spending money on things (because when it comes down to it, that's all they really are), she opted to spend money to help others . . . and didn't even take the credit for it.  Taking a cue from what her colleagues enjoy (from chickens to simply being outside), she provided those in need with vital resources.

Talk about a person who knows what giving is all about . . . Thanks to her donations, families in Thailand (where she will be celebrating her coming birthday) received roosters + chickens, Bibles, + mosquito netting.  

And, in my mum's name, one surely appreciative woman received a sewing machine.  A life line, really.  Not only has her village gained an important resource, but this lady now has a way to provide for her family for years to come.  She now has a trade.  Anyone who knows my mum, another inspirational woman I have been blessed with, knows this was one of the best gifts she could have received.  

By the time she finished filling me in, we were both glassy-eyed.

From such comes the inspiration for my charitable non-profit of focus this semester.  The Sewing Machine Project brings hope and life lines to those stricken by poverty or natural disaster.  Along with these gifts comes education of how to operate the machines and how to run a small business, both crucial elements.  This brings about more independent families and communities, starting with the empowerment of individuals.

I am so excited to learn more about the amazing efforts of this organization! I love seeing the glowing smiles + lasting effects which are evident in the faces of these women from Sri Lanka (above) + Mexico (to the right).

(Images)

and so it begins

I'm never in much of a hurry to do anything when it comes to my creative side.  I blame this mainly on the perfectionist streak my mother so generously handed down.  Don't get me wrong; I have the ideas and the desires to do these things but I want them to be perfect.  The first time around.  So I end up thinking too long and putting them off - and, more often than not, never actually doing them.  Even naming this blog was a challenge.  I stared at a blank screen for several minutes while everyone around me typed furiously.  Thanks goes to Meleah for getting my tail moving by just taking over.

Blogging is just one of the areas that I've been slow to approach.  I have often thought of getting started but I never took the plunge.  But I guess I can thank my Writing for Change class for yet another push into the unknown.

While the focus of this blog, the subject matter of said class and how it will relate to a chosen nonprofit organization of my choice (can't wait to see how long it takes me to decide on one of those), isn't really what I had in mind for my first blog, I have to admit that I am looking forward to the challenge.  Even if it is an apprehensive excitement.  The inner workings of nonprofits, charitable nonprofits (which are not the same things, as I recently learned), grants, and all that other slightly scary sounding stuff, has never really been anything that I considered delving into.  But here I am.  At yet another new learning experience that I didn't ask for (if you don't count the fact that I signed up and paid for the class, of course).