The Goods 4 Girls project is humming along quite nicely and I wanted to give you all an update on how things are going.Donations: The donations are rolling in. So far, I have over 100 pads already. These are the ones that were purchased outright from various cloth pad sellers. I'm expecting a bunch more from people who are making them at home. Many of the cloth pad sellers are running promotions and discounts for donations being made to Goods 4 Girls. Check out the How to Donate page for a list of participants. I'll have some other exciting news to announce hopefully in the next week regarding this.
Also, I have added to the website the request for donations of waterproof carry bags for the girls to transport their pads to and from school. I have added links to two sellers of the bags, but they can be made at home as well if you are sewing your donations.
Aid Organizations: I'm now in discussions with five aid organizations, the primary ones being in Uganda and Kenya. The feedback I am getting is that the need there is great for this project. I can't, at this point, tell you what kind of numbers we are looking at but it appears almost endless. And I'm only talking to people in four countries right now.
But, regardless of the country, it's the same story for some areas, many ravaged by conflict and AIDS. There's no access to pads or they can't afford them and the girls are using scraps of rags or banana leaves. The crushing poverty in some of these areas is unbelievable. I could go on and on...
Anyway, I will be sending out a sample "kit" to Kenya later this week. The kits I will be sending out to each girl will include: ~5 pads, greetings & instructions and a waterproof carry bag.
I'm hoping to send 60 kits to Kenya by the end of March, depending on when I have enough donations. The donations will be going into an area with adequate water supply for cleaning the pads and to girls who have adequate supplies of underwear. Although I may be asking for donations for purchasing underwear at a later date. I'll be making a more formal announcement on where they are going soon.
Website Additions: I'm hoping to finish adding the ability to do cash donations via PayPal on the site later this week to help cover shipping, duty and taxes.
I will be updating the Goods 4 Girls website with this and other news once everything is a little more formalized. And I'll be posting pictures of the communities the pads are going to soon.
Thanks to all of you donors and those helping spread the word.
[Update: Goods 4 Girls got a mention on Discovery's Planet Green this morning.]
Posts
14 Crunchy Thoughts:
WOW - Crunchy I am so amazed! I am also very proud. Not that you need a pat on the back from li'l ol' me, but...please keep on, keepin' on! We have 'adopted' a Malawi student who goes to a local college as part of friendship program here. When I told her about this program, she said it never occurred to her to sew the pads. They do a lot of sewing and now that she and some others are here, they hope to make some! They have access to some great machines, endless cheap fabric and here they have a lot more free time! We appreciate the updates!
This is so awesome! I have gathered my excess flannel and an old mattress pad – just need to get some waterproof liner. My daughter and I plan to cut this week and sew next week. Great work Crunchy!
Thanks so much! You are amazing. I am so proud to be part of this. I cannot imagine where this is going!
Thank you for all your hard work and amazing speed!
Thanks for taking on such a great cause! Between this, your blog and your family you must be one busy lady! Your kids are lucky to have such a great role model & be able to watch this project from the beginning :-)
There are many simple tutorials about fusing plastic bags with an iron to make a workable waterproof material. Would this not kill two birds with one stone, recycling these bags to make these much needed pads?
Just the waterproof lining, I mean.
I'm working on making some pads but it will probably be a few weeks.
Wow, very inspiring! Hope to have some made ASAP.
too am waiting on a waterproof material. The recycling bags thing sounds interesting. Anyone tried it?
I don't know if this would work in this situation at all, but when my husband and I did a charity for the children of Iraq it was suggested that we ship to a USO base because you can use flat rate boxes to any USO base and it costs a fraction of sending it to a residence or business. You could prob. fit about 40 of the pads in a box that would cost 8.95$. My husband contacted the base and a woman who was currently doing the charity work there. She received and organized distribution for the supplies we sent. It all worked out really well. We were able to send so much more than we expected due to the savings in shipping.
I am amazed at how well and how fast you pulled this all together.
you are excellent http://love2bgreen.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-am-excellent.html
Can you tell me where I can find simple tutorials about fusing plastic bags with an iron to make a workable waterproof material? Thank you.
Eeeep!
That's so exciting.
I was hoping that you would get a mention on treehugger or something someday.
I think you really tapped into something here. When I was talking to my mom about it she said "Of course we should help them, they're our sisters."
http://etsylabs.blogspot.com/2007/05/long-overdue-fusing-plastic-bag.html
Try this.
Keeping plastic out of landfills, WHILE helping our sisters; is there anything better?
I hate to think of buying and using new material, when thrift stores are full of good, usable fabric waiting to be repurposed and saved from landfills. Would cotton t-shirts be good for this? How about toweling material?
Post a Comment