BeadforLife

October 13th, 2008 at 8:36 pm

Last year I attended the Power 100 Summit in January, where we were told a bit about BeadforLife and the story behind the organization.  Each of us were given a bracelet in our gift bag, and we were told that the beads on it were made out of recycled paper by women in Uganda who had been living on less than $1 a day before becoming employed with BeadforLife.  I was very intrigued by this organization, and desired to put an event together for it all last year, but the timing just never worked out.  This year I was determined to see it through!

We first contacted BeadforLife and ordered our beads (there are three different size packages, I opted for the medium sized package); the organization pays for all shipping and handling costs to encourage volunteers to sell, they even sent me a pre-paid shipping label to ship the leftover beads back!  We then held a meeting to discuss our potential outreach areas and got to work on advertising.  We made flyers and hung them up around the school and I contacted our school paper, the Indiana Daily Student (IDS), to let them know about our event. We then had to organize a schedule of who could work when in order to ensure that the table was manned at all times, which did actually take a bit of work because of so many last-minute changes that came up! Our sale went from Tuesday, October 7th through Friday, October 10 from 12:30 to 6pm every day.  The next step was to figure out supplies, dividing up who would bring what to the sale.  We had to improvise and use baskets and colorful drinking cups to string the beads around, but the cups were actually a huge hit, and we received many compliments on how well they went with the beads! Just goes to show you that a little improvisation goes a long way

The IDS was very intrigued and sent a reporter over to the booth the first day of the sale to learn more.  We told her not only about BeadforLife, but also about what ONE stands for and why this event was so important.  When we opened the paper the next day, there was a half-page article about our event on page 2!  We were all stoked, and our sales from that second day more than doubled as a result of the article.  I sent the writer an email the next day, thanking her for taking the time to investigate our sale and give us publicity; the media is such a powerful tool, and it’s important to maintain a good relationship with its team members!

Overall, we raised over $1600 to benefit these Ugandan women, which is more than we had ever expected!  This money goes back to them and provides them a way to obtain food and clothing, purchase school supplies, and pay for education costs, medications, and ultimately give them hope for a better future.  Most of the women employed are either HIV positive or are refugees of civil war, living in poverty with their families.  It’s such a blessing that BeadforLife was started and has provided them with an income to give them all a better quality of life!

To find out more on BeadforLife and to learn how to host your own sale, visit www.beadforlife.org and let them know your interest!

-Jessica Beckner, Indiana University:  jlbeckne@indiana.edu