I recognize that in our increasingly materialistic world, we are all looking for products that not only enhance our everyday lives, but help us to feel better about the world and our place in it.

Products and Packaging

The very existence of my products is based on creating as local and natural a product as possible.  I also work very hard to avoid excessive packaging.  My products are packaged in fully biodegradable, unbleached wax paper bags; gift packaging is attractive, durable and reusable.  You won’t find any plastic-y or excessive packaging.  When your order of my products arrives, you’ll most likely find it safely packed in a reused box, with reused (or reusable) bubble-wrap or other pleasant protective material (no Styrofoam peanuts!).  I encourage you to reuse this packaging until the life is completely gone from it!  And I welcome your ideas and feedback to make my products as “green” as possible.


Giving 5% to Build an Endowment through my Women’s Giving Circle

But we need to be more proactive in the world than just being “low-impact.” So April through December, I earmark 5% of my sales, not my profit, to give away. In the past few years, I have given to 17 different non-profit organizations, both locally and internationally. These include holiday “gifts” to friends and family, giving to the favorite charity of their choice. Click here to view those organizations with links.

When I started giving money away, it seemed easy. Then it started to feel overwhelming, and I began to question the effectiveness of my giving. I wanted to feel more of a connection to and impact on the efforts that I support, and to be more focused in my giving. After hearing a wonderful story about a Women’s Giving Circle in Boston on the public radio program Human Kind, I realized that a giving circle is exactly the kind of experience I have been looking for.

A giving circle is a group of people who get together, pool their money, and decide together where that money will go. Giving circles can take many different forms. Our Women’s Giving Circle (as yet, unnamed) involves an inspiring group process where we are able to discuss openly and safely issues of concern to us in the world as well as a place to share and process our money issues for personal growth and to make us more effective givers/philanthropists.

A year ago, we set an exciting goal for ourselves: to establish an endowment fund to be housed at the Santa Fe Community Foundation. The mission of our endowment will follow the spirit of Martin Luther King's words: “Far from being the pious injunction of a utopian dreamer, the command to love one’s enemy is an absolute necessity for our survival”—we will seek to support efforts that bring together opposing groups to work toward sustainable solutions to various issues. (Creativity for Peace, a Glorieta program that brings Palestinian and Israeli teenage girls together, is an example of the kinds of programs we would like to support.) We are moved to help foster the peace that comes when perceived "enemies" sit together and listen, learn and maybe even learn to love each other, in a safe, productive setting. We think this is the only way we all can truly find real, dynamic, long term solutions to problems such as war, environmental destruction, poverty--the only way we can survive as a species on our planet.

Our goal is to raise an initial $10,250 to open our endowment fund by the end of 2008. As of this writing, we already have $8638! We welcome new members to our group, and hope to ultimately have a dynamic giving process that includes monthly “impulse donations,” annual grants, and larger 5-year grants.

If you would like more information about Community Foundations, giving circles, and philanthropy, check out these sites that have inspired me:
Giving Forum: Giving Circles
Soul of Money
Santa Fe Community Foundation
Human Kind Radio