Day 8 of Giving that Gives Back: Meet Mercy Goods

Mercy Goods

Good That Transforms

From early on in our time working as St.Bryce Missions here in Costa Rica, one of the things God began to build a passion and a vision for was job creation, skills training and meaningful work in our area. The area in we live and minister is one of the most rural regions of Costa Rica. It also has one of the lowest rate of family income in the country. For women, access to work outside the domestic arena is limited. If it is available, it is often located an hour or more away in the city. For single moms or moms with young children, it is nearly impossible to work in the city without having to pay for additional child care. And if a woman can't leave home to work for reasons such as being the primary care taker of an elderly or disables relative, her options for finding income for her family are non-existent.

After much prayer, conversation, and research, we began an outreach providing skills training and meaningful work opportunities to women in our area. We are in the process of rebranding and designing our shop right now, but the title above is the name of our social enterprise: Mercy Goods. If you click under my archives tab on "meaningful work", you can follow along much for the process as I brainstormed my way through to getting the enterprise off the ground. 

Our ladies produce hand made quilts and other items from reclaimed clothing that we source locally. We reduce our consumer footprint by turning bags of clothes that were headed to the landfill into usable, sellable craft items. We create a cycle of giving that gives back by first contracting our ladies to make quilts for a current partner that we choose to "cover in mercy". Sponsors donate the price of the quilt and the ladies are then paid to produce them. We at St. Bryce Missions deliver them to the partner. We have to date covered our local orphanage, the first licensed safe house for trafficking victims here in Costa Rica, and the Gleason House for ALS patients in our Mercy Covers quilts.

Tomorrow, we will open  the opportunity to contract our artists to create a waterproof quilt for the homeless this Christmas. Our goal will be to cover the local homeless community in the nearby city of Turrialba in mercy, as well as the community being served by our friends in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This will mean contracting a total of 70 quilts. I do hope you will come back tomorrow and give this special gift that gives back three-fold: to the recipient of the quilt, to the artist and her family who are employed and empowered by your donation, and to you the donor who does to do good that transforms.

In addition to the quilts. we then give our artists the opportunity to take ownership over the materials and skills we provide them and create other items for sale. While we are waiting for our shop front to be ready, you can view the items available to purchase on our Facebook page. So today, would you stop and take a look around? Perhaps find an item or two you might like? And share this post or the page with your social media connections?

Building this kind of enterprise is way more challenging than I ever expected and much slower going than I thought it would be. Your help and encouragement keeps me and our artists pushing forward through the obstacles seeking to transform lives and families and communities. We truly appreciate that more than you will ever know.

P.S. I had all these great photos to add to this post. But blogger is all, "Hey, Lady, day of rest. Get it?" Bu they are all on our Facebook albums, so that just means you HAVE to head over and click around, right?

All posts in this series can be found linked here.

Day 6 of Giving that Gives Back: Christmas Clothes

It's late, but I am sneaking this one in at the wire. It's a pretty simple concept today and I didn't have time to make it all pretty. Here you go.

Let's tackle one quick and easy way you can commit to curbing your Christmas consumer footprint this year. Commit now to putting forth your very best effort not to purchase any new clothing items this Christmas. Look, I know I might have just killed a little piece of Christmas joy in some mamas' hearts. Because this is a really hard one for me too. I am a Southern girl. Fresh red baby corduroy and monograms say Christmas to me louder than any tree ever did. But let's face it, there are already enough clothes in existence in the world, maybe even in our own closets, to clothe us all for the next twenty Christmases.

And, this doesn't have to be a bore or a drain. You already know that shopping thrift or second-hand stores would be one way to tackle this challenge. And I am sure there are some people who just want to cocoon at that thought which for them equals dragging highly unmotivated and thus easily tempted children into an unorganized mess to go on a treasure hunt that may or may not yield result and will very likely end with threats to cancel Christmas altogether. I feel you, moms.

Now, there are some of us who love this kind of shopping. In the right circumstances. And are blessed that life aligns itself to those circumstances. If that is the case, by all means, girls, get your thrift on. But if it isn't the case for you, don't break out in hives yet. I have some ideas.

First, did you know you can now thrift shop online!? ThredUp gives you a fairly organized online shopping experience for high-quality retail clothing. And I have heard really good things from satisfied customers. I love this concept. You're freed from the guilt of liking the bright lights and color coordination of your favorite store better than the dinge of the thrift store and the not-so-Christmas-y fun of sifting through unorganized racks of hidden treasures with your kids not-so-compliantly in tow. Win for you. Win for the world.

And what about tapping in to your local resources and that festive fun concept we've been talking about? Why not invite your neighborhood moms, bible study or homeschooling group over for a kids' Christmas clothes swap? Or an accessory swap? How many of us buy new baubles at Christmas just because we to flash some new bling? Why not trade your old for someone else's and both feel new bran sparkly new without the guilt? If you can't imagine how you could have people in your house right now, meet up somewhere neutral for breakfast and swap.

And don't forget to take advantage of social media. Make a Christmas clothes swap page for your neighborhood and spread the word on Facebook. Create an Instagram thread of photos of clothes up for swap with a shared hashtag. Do some other cool techy thing I know nothing about. Show me up with your creativity.

If getting new clothes is hands down part of your Christmas tradition that you can't bear to change, don't sweat it. Instead, consider paying a local seamstress to make handmade clothes or purchasing from a mom's small enterprise. There are tons on Etsy and Facebook with really precious options.

More than anything, take some time to think. Clothes are some of the biggest contributor to our slavery footprints. Surely, there is at least some small habit we can change this year with the intention of consuming less. Make a choice on what it may be and plan accordingly so you don't get sucked in to the frenzy. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. It's a little hackneyed, that phrase, but it really is the simplest way to become more intentional stewards. Let's challenge ourselves to form one new holiday clothes shopping habit that reduces our overall consumption significantly this year.

All posts in the series are linked here.