Back-to-School Bags the Fair Trade Way!

I've decided that I want to become more consistent with my blogging. So I've made a goal to post once a week, each week of the month corresponding with a different theme.  Week one: Fair trade or Environmentalism.  Week two:  Personal Reflection.  Week three: Social Issues.  And week four: Glo-burban Spotlights.

Since this is the first week of August and we are nearing the start of another school year, I decided to take some time to highlight some back-to-school bags... that are not only totally cool... but are also totally Fair Trade purchases!  You can be sure that these products were not made in some China sweatshop by children who would much prefer to be in school themselves, but were made by employees being treated rightly and payed fairly!

Just to be honest, my kids are not receiving one of these bags this school year, though they will be using their fair trade lunch boxes from last year.  I showed them  a few of these backpacks, but they are going with something different this year.  There are a gazillion fair trade and eco-friendly options out there, and it can be fun to shop online with your kids.  One of the best websites I've found for fair trade/eco-friendly products is WorldofGood.com by Ebay.

 Here are just a few that I thought were cool and affordable!

1. Bazura Bags

We bought two adorable lunch bags from Bazura Bags last year, and I have been asked on many occasion... "Where did you get those cute lunch bags?"  These are just two of their styles.  I love the messegner book bags made from used rice bags and recycled aluminum foil! 











2. Fair Trade Winds - Owl Back Pack

Isn't this cute?  Perfect for your little Pre-Schooler or Kindergartner?  These are made using various scraps of fabric by a Fair-Trade women's co-op in Thailand.





3.  Hempmania

This every day backpack is made of a very eco-friendly product, hemp, by Mayan families in Guatemala. Very versatile!






 4. Recycled Rice Lunch Bag

 I love this lunch bag!!!  And it would go perfect with the rice bag back pack from Bazura!














5. Fair Trade Winds - lunch bag

 Oh, isn't this a perfect gift for a teacher!  Who wouldn't love this cute lunch bag?  And they do free shipping!




6. Recycled Juice Bags Lunch Bag

This cute lunch box is made from recycled juice bags from the Philippines and is sold at my favorite store ever... Ten Thousand Villages!  It's very similar to the lunch bags I bought last year for Dylan and Jaida. 


Happy shopping, friends!

Spring is Sprouting!

It's spring! The season of new life, new beginnings. Dry brown branches are being speckled by hews of baby green, transforming the bare forests to deep green in a matter of a few short weeks.  Funny, twisted shoots are peeping out from a thawing earth, mysteriously revealing flowers of every color of the rainbow.  Gray skies melt to blue.  Harsh, howling winds are replaced by cool breezes, carrying the melodies of bird-songs.  The sun stoops closer to our part of the planet calling forth new life.

Gardeners are getting dirty.  Farmers are tilling their fields.  And the rest of us are growing excited for fresh, local produce.  Last year I wrote about my excitement for the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) vegetable co-op to begin again at Lancaster County Farm Fresh.  This will be our 4th year that we have bought a vegetable share with our neighbors to split.  This means that we will be getting locally-grown, organic, delicious produce from May to October! And not only that, we will be keeping many family farms in business, in an era when small farmers are forced to sell their land due to a loss in profits.

So if you live in any of these counties... Lancaster, Lebanon, Berks, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, or Delaware... you still have time to purchase a vegetable, fruit, flower, or herb share from Lancaster County Farm Fresh and have it delivered to a pick-up site near you.  Consider sharing a share with another family.  It's a great way to eat healthy, take care of the land, and support small, business owners.  I call that a win-win-win!

Click on this link to learn more about LCFF!

The Lorax, a Tree-Hugging Friend

Environmental Science.  Sixth Grade.  It ruined me.  Or better put, it opened my eyes to my part of ruining our precious planet.  It is where I learned about population over-growth, landfills, pollution, and global-warming.  It was the fire under my feet that urged me to urge my parents to begin saving our "recyclables" and to begin a compost pile in the corner of our yard, next to the woods.  And it's what eventually caused my husband to label me a "tree-hugger" when we were first married (all for telling him that we needed to get a recycling bin!)  

My husband has come a long way (he blessedly bought me a composting sphere for Christmas two years ago!), and I now have two offspring who bring trash in from the outside, shaking their heads and saying, "Some people just do not care about our Earth, Mommy!"  Ahh... nothing warms a mother's heart more.  

So it should come to no surprise when I tell you that I cried at the end of The Lorax, the new film based off of the children's story by Dr. Seuss.  We took the kids to see it last Saturday for our first big-screen movie as an entire family.  And, boy, was this worth seeing!  Sure, it's an extreme example of environmental destruction, but the message is powerfully relevant for our times (and for anyone trying to live a glo-burban life).  

The Onceler reveals to the audience that environmental destruction is rooted in greed.  His desire to do something BIG, to be RECOGNIZED, and to make LOTS OF MONEY fuels his decision to chop down every last tree, with no regard to how the trees are such an important part of sustainable life.  The trees are not only beautiful and mysterious, but they make up an essential part of the habitat for the bears, the birds and the fish.  The loss of the trees is also the loss of the lives that depend upon them.  

Living in suburban America, I realize that I am part of this larger Greed.  Where I live, where I shop, how much I drive my car, what I buy... all of these decisions contain a carbon footprint.  Sometimes it's easier not to care, not to wonder whose water is being contaminated by my trash or what river is drying up due to the furniture I buy (deforestation) or whose lungs are being contaminated by my car's emissions.  These thoughts bring with them a sense of responsibility, a knowledge that my actions affect others' lives, that I am just one being here on Earth and yet am also connected to this beautiful web of life.

But the inspirational message from The Lorax comes when the the hero of the movie, a teenage boy named Ted, realizes that his voice matters, and declares, "I'm Ted.  And I speak for the trees."  He makes a decision to challenge the assumptions of those in his town.  He questions their belief that plastic can replace Nature, that Capitalism does not have consequences, that human life is disconnected from the rest of Creation, that humans have the right to abuse Creation.  

Ted challenges me.  I can pretend that my life has little ripple effect, but I know that this is not true. Having any global awareness at all reveals the fact that American consumerism (i.e. greed) fuels much of the environmental devastation around our globe... from warring over oil, diamonds, gold, and titanium... to wanting to eat cheap, fast food... to building economic empires... to chasing the latest and the greatest stuff... This lack of contentment, this lack of reverence for our God-given home... it snags at each of us.  

And so what to do?  How to contain the "spirit of the Lorax"?  I think it begins with educating ourselves.  When we begin to understand what is happening in our world and what we can do about it, we then can make choices that are healing, rather than greedy.  Secondly, I look to my pocket book.  Where am I spending my money?  In a culture that is driven by the dollar, do I want to encourage greedy businesses that make heavy carbon footprints on this earth?  Or would I rather support the many, creative enterprises (often times very small) that value human life and environmental sustainability?

For a better understanding of where our stuff goes when we're bored with it, check this out: The Story of Stuff

For a look at the impact of global-warming, check out An Inconvenient Truth.

To learn more about Rain Forest Devastation, read this.

To learn about earth-friendly, alternative cleaning products, click here.

To shop fairtrade check out: Fair Trade USA, Ten Thousand Villages, or Green America 

To better understand our role in the food chain, watch Food Inc.

How are you trying to follow the spirit of the tree-hugging Lorax?

Sacred Food

What is it about food that makes it such a powerful force in our lives?  And isn't it just that... a powerful force?  Don't our lives, our very physical existence, revolve around food?  Around meals?  And isn't it more than that?  More than just energy for the body?

I was challenged once by a book I read to look at ordinary things of life as sacred.  The Catholic faith tradition has named seven sacraments, but this author prefers to look at even a cup of coffee as sacred.  And I like his way of thinking.  I think it is not the cup of coffee that is sacred in and of itself, but the intentional enjoyment of its rich, warm flavor upon the lips of the drinker that creates a sacred moment.  When the one drinking the coffee reflects on the gift of coffee beans and the labor of those harvesting and roasting the beans and the amazing sense of taste, all of a sudden the act of drinking a cup of coffee has become a sacred moment.

I used to look at food through two lenses that I believe inhibited my ability to see the sacred nature of food.  The first lens was that of How will this affect my taste buds?  And usually if the food tasted very sweet or very salty (like my childhood favorite of a McDonald's strawberry milkshake and french fries), I deemed the food quite "good." The second lens developed in my teen years: How will this affect the shape of my body?  And since it was the Fat-Free Craze of the 90's, I tried to prevent my body from growing fat by eliminating almost all meat, cheese, and fats of ANY kind from my diet. I literally stopped liking those foods.  I lived on "fat-free" carbohydrates... Nutri-Grain bars, meatless spagetti, banana bread, apples, corn bread, carrots, bread with jelly (never butter!), graham crackers, bread, bread, bread....

These two views of food left me largely unsatisfied with food.  I could not understand why I continued to crave more food even after stuffing myself (with sugars and carbs).  It took me years to learn that my body was telling me that it was still hungry, hungry for other fuels such as fats, proteins, and vitamins.  Food became my enemy... a wild animal that I must control lest I grew huge and unattractive.  I tried skipping meals.  I tried making myself throw up when I could not restrict my eating.  I compared what I ate to everyone around me. I thought about food ALL the time.  It was a terrible way to live.  

A nutrition class during my freshman year of college began shaping my understanding of how food functions in the body.  There I learned that we need fat in our diet to burn the sugar and carb calories.  I began eating a varied diet and found that I felt much more satiated and did not blow up into a balloon (I actually lost weight).  When I became a mother, I began paying attention to which foods lined my pantry.  All of a sudden, I didn't want to buy milk with added growth hormones (could this send my innocent child into early puberty?) or produce with chemicals sprayed all over them (could this cause cancer in that perfect little body some day?)  Over the last few years it is safe to say I have developed a passion for nutrition.  I now find it fascinating and fulfilling to discover which foods our bodies were meant to eat and how to prepare them in delicious ways. 

My food lenses have changed. I now desire to eat real food, food that nourishes my body, causing it to feel healthy, energetic, and strong.  Afterall, if what I ingest is not nourishing my body, can I really call it food?  Isn't the very definition of food something that nourishes?  And isn't this physical nourishment a sort of sacrament?  I now find it a near holy act to sit down before a table of garden greens, homemade soup, and fresh-baked muffins and share in a nutritious, delicious meal with loved ones.  

There is something also in the preparation of food that makes it sacred.  A beautiful circle of creativity is involved to bring food to the table. Foremost, our Creator has graciously created an earth to sustain--to nurture--human life.  Think of the many kinds of meat, the vegetation, the vines which produce fruit and berries, the bees which produce honey, the cattle which produce milk, the birds which produce eggs, the trees which produce nuts and syrup, and the oceans which produce fish.  Then there is the faithful nurturing of the earth which we owe our gratitude to the farmers (especially to those who farm in a manner that respects the earth and human life).  And finally there is the love, time and creativity given by the hands of those who prepare the food into tasteful dishes... into food that nourishes, pleases, and satisfies.

While attending a spiritual retreat in West Virgina last summer, I was struck by the simple yet profound blessing the retreat leader gave before our meals.  It went something like this:

"We give thanks to God, to the earth, and to the hands that prepared this food."

I wonder where else we might see the Sacred if we looked more intently.



For a documentary on the problem with our American processed foods, click here.  For a list of 12 of the highest contaminated fruits and vegetables, click here.  To learn more about grassfed animals, click here.  For an excellent blog about cooking with local, fresh ingredients, click here.  And for a great cookbook on eating what's in season, click here.

Fair Trade Friday - Bead for Life!

What do you get when you mix old magazines, Ugandan women, and style?  Well, you get beads, of course!  And not just any old beads... bright, colorful, handmade beads made from recycled paper.  And the best part about these beads?  They are fair-traded!  

I was first introduced to these beads two years ago through a friend's sister.  They were just too cool to pass up. My friend Jenny and I decided to host a Bead for Life party.  So we booked a party in late fall, perfectly planned for Christmas-shoppers, set up shop in my home, and boy, did those beads sell!  We invited our suburban girl friends, and they helped us raise over $1000.00 for Ugandan women artisans by buying jewelry for their moms, their sisters, their friends, and their kids' teachers! 

It was the coolest home-party I had ever attended (or hosted).  Instead of listening to a speech in the living room about the product, we let the jewelry and the women's printed-out stories do the selling while we gabbed and grabbed at snacks.  And 100% of the proceeds went back to the non-profit Bead for Life!

Bead for Life not only offers fair-pay, job training, and good working conditions to women in Uganda, a country where poverty and violence has left many women with little opportunities for survival, but the women are usually self-dependent entrepreneurs after only working with Bead for Life for 18 months.  Moreover, the revenue created by selling the jewelry at a fair-price to global customers, not only goes into the hands of these hard-working women, but into development programs that benefit their entire communities, such as vocational training, housing programs, school fees, and health initiatives.  

 So if you're feeling itchy to update your wardrobe (men, don't despair!  There are now even some products for you!), or if you are looking for an excuse to hang out with some friends, or if you just want to help make our world a little more fair for all to live in, consider hosting a Bead for Life party or shopping on their online store.  (FYI, I just learned now that Bead for Life has opened up a new market for Shea Butter soap and lip balms!)

I'd love to know if any of you have heard about Bead for Life or purchased any of their products.  Tell us about it!

Fair Trade Friday - Lunch Boxes

So it's back-to-school-shopping-time!  Last week, the kids and I took care of important business... hair cuts and new shoes.  While shopping at Old Navy, we came across some really cute, inexpensive backpacks with matching lunch boxes.  I hadn't yet decided if we were going to buy the kids new backpacks; after all, their Target-bought backpacks had held up pretty well last year.  Plus, I don't think it is necessary to buy a new backpack and lunch box every school year.  That wouldn't be kind to our wallets or to our earth or to the values of living simply that we are wanting to convey.  But they were so cute!  And the sale price!  Only $7 for the backpacks and $4 for the lunch box!  I caved.  Jaida quickly found the pattern she liked while Dylan declined (the boys' patterns were sort of boring).

Then we came home, and I showed the purchases to Jarred.  We discussed the back pack dilemma and decided our kids could use last year's backpacks another year.  Plus, I admitted, these Old Navy bags seemed cheaply made.  One backpack's strap was hanging on by three threads on the rack at Old Navy.  And above that, like most of the clothes we wear, how in the world could the makers of these bags in Vietnam be making a livable wage?  If Old Navy can afford to sell the bags so cheaply after paying all of their overhead and the cost of transporting them across the globe, they must have bought these bags for next-to-nothing from the Vietnamese manufacturer.


So I am planning to return the backpack and lunch box, much to my daughter's dismay.  However, the kids are still in need of lunch boxes.  (You can only spill milk and yogurt into a lunch box so many times, before its stench turns the stomach of its user.)  I decided to jump online to see if there aren't any eco-friendly or fair-traded lunch boxes out there.  Turns out there are many to choose from!  This was one of my favorites...

Photo Credit: Bazura.Biz

Aren't they cute?  They are called Bazura bags, and they are made by a women's co-op in the Philippines, using juice bags which otherwise would have been thrown by the wayside.  This is a brilliant concept as literally thousands of these juice bags are consumed daily in the Philippines.  But now this waste is being converted into a profitable business for women entrepreneurs.

Photo Credit: Bazura.Biz

Unlike many women living in developing countries who often work long hours in the fields or in sweat shops, these women work for themselves in fair conditions, contribute to their communities, and are part of a solution to reduce the trash in their country.

You must check out their other items, too--handbags, grocery bags, coin purses, and lots more!  Go to www.bazurabags.com 

Photo Credit: Bazura.Biz

Water

Tonight as I was walking back and forth between faucet and stressed perrenial and wishing for a thunderstorm, I checked my email and glanced at an e-newsletter from Church World Service.  The first headline was "CWS Responding in Drought-Stricken areas of Kenya."  Immediately I felt the weight of my watering containers as I imagined myself walking the dirt roads of a Kenyan village.  I felt the crunch of our straw-like grass and imagined  walking in solidarity with women from around the world, women who are gathering water for cooking dinner and washing clothes as I gather water to nourish the flowers and shrubs of our backyard.  It reminded me of something I had written a few years back when our water had to be shut off for a few hours...

It’s amazing how three hours of no access to running water can affect a life… at least for that moment in time.  So yes… at about “time to begin making dinner” time the other evening, I turned on the spigot to clean a frying pan when “wa-lah!”   No water.  Not even a drop.  We were given no prior knowledge to this invasive occurrence on our lives, so we had not been able to reserve a large pot or bucket of water as would be a typical response when one knows the lines are being turned off for this or that reason.  I looked around me…. two sippy cups, half-full of water; that’s it.  All of a sudden, a dozen little activities that we take for granted on a daily basis became very imperative.  Washing hands, flushing the toilet, quenching thirst, completing a load of soiled laundry, washing a dirty frying pan… all of these simple tasks had to be halted, and in turn my convenient way of living was brought into fresh perspective. 

            On many an occasion, I have told my four-year-old son to drink his water because “it is the best thing for you in the whole world” and to turn off the faucet when washing hands became a game because “water is the most important resource we have.”  Yet do I really know this from experience?  Is it really possible to believe this when running water is just an arm-length’s away for most of us?  The only times I have ever had to walk for water and carry it have been when I am camping, and usually “carrying” meant lugging our water container in the trunk of our Jeep back to our campsite. 

            Recently, I received the latest issue of my favorite magazine, A Common Place, which always serves to broaden my horizons and readjust my perspective.  I read about a Mozambique woman, Luiza Mamhoa—a widow, mother, and grandmother—who gets up at two in the morning to walk to the nearest well and returns at 9 a.m. with one 5-gallon jug of water to be rationed between the eleven people in her household.  Until a recent development in her village, people in her community had not enough water to plant or harvest any of their own crops during the seven-month dry season and so were dependent upon searching in the wild for any signs of food when their sources ran dry.  Luiza and countless other African women and men share similar stories as their continent’s rivers and streams continue to dry out due to causes such as global-warming and deforestation.   They understand how precious water truly is, and I doubt a fallen drop or a swallow-full is taken for granted. 

            I thought about Luiza and her delicate handling of water as I rationed what was inside my children’s sippy cups… a little to thicken our taco seasoning, several drops to wet a paper towel, a portion for brushing teeth, the rest for the children to drink.  I learned that I could “get by” with reusing a pan, wiping my sticky fingers on an already wet dish cloth, drinking the less-quenchable beverages in my refrigerator, and not flushing the toilet after every single use.

I suppose when push comes to shove, we are forced to use our creativity to “get by.”    Yet I wonder what else in my life do I use and discard carelessly?  What if I would use less so others could have more?  What really is enough?  The fact that I have the opportunity to call and pay for a plumber or to drive to the nearest convenience store for bottled water does not negate my responsibility to remember those who do not.  

Little Luxuries from the Land

Those of us from my generation, and I suppose even our parents' generation, cannot remember a time before super-markets.  A time when strawberries and greens were only eaten in early summer, tomatoes and peppers were only offered in mid-summer, and when pumpkins, potatoes, and apples were only available in the fall.  And as for avocados.... well, what were they anyway?  For the generations before us, winter meant eating produce in canned, frozen, or in some other preserved form.

Yes, as a modern-day "glo-burbanite" I am privileged to enjoy eating just about any food from around the globe which seems to have miraculously made its way to a little neat pile on the shelves of my local super-market.  And then of course, I even have the option to visit all sorts of cross-cultural restaurants.  If I feel like Italian, I might go to the Olive Garden.  If I am feeling a little Southeast Asian, there are delicious Thai and Indian restaurants nearby.  Or I could fulfill my Mexican taste-buds at Alebrije! 

It's easy to lose touch with how much of the rest of the world functions without all of these luxuries.  And yet sometimes, I think, we suburbanites miss out on some little luxuries of being part of the natural order of growing and harvesting seasons.

That is one of the reasons I love being a part of a community-supported-agriculture (CSA) co-op.  This is our third year being members of Lancaster County Farm Fresh Co-op.  Our membership enables us to support local, organic farmers (in an era where farmers find it very difficult to make profits) while enjoying fresh, delicious, and nutritious produce from May to November!  Being a part of a CSA co-op has also taught me about the rhythm of seasonal produce.  And so we eat broccoli when it's in season and kale when it's in season and butternut squash when it's in season.  And I preserve as much as I can so that we can enjoy  frozen zucchini or pureed pumpkin in muffins throughout the winter.

I feel we have now gained a "taste" for how many around our world live and eat from year to year.  There is an excitement that comes with waiting for certain foods to grow and eat.  You can only imagine my anticipation for fresh salsa and BLT's, since we have bought a rare tomato since last summer!  There is an eagerness to be resourceful so that no leaf of arugula is wasted, but is instead turned into pesto.  And there is a gratefulness to the earth, to our Creator, and to the hard-working farmers who have so diligently nurtured seeds into fruit for our nourishment and joy!

If you share my enthusiasm for eating fresh and local, you MUST know about this fantastic cookbook, entitled Simply in Season which organizes recipes by what is in season.  You may also enjoy following this blog, Thy Hand Hath Provided, where a very passionate woman raises most of her food on her own land and posts the most delicious recipes with step-by-step pictures.