Grace & Fire Leather Reveal
Mon, Jun 17
|Color Joy
This event is a Showcase of the New Leather line by Grace & Fire from Women Makers in Guatamala! Come join me! Your Supports Creates Impact!
Time & Location
Jun 17, 2024, 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Color Joy, 35 S 26th St, Colorado Springs, CO 80904, USA
About the event
I had such an inspiring and life changing experience in Guatamala a couple of weeks ago. It has certainly taken me a bit to catch ground as I process all the stories and hardship that the village we visited has been through and continues to go through. The poverty was extreme while faith and hope matched in extraordinary ways. I felt so small and learned so much.
I always feel a little out of bounds in telling other people stories but I feel these women deserve to be seen and heard and I believe its important for you to know who is making these gorgeous leather bags I brought back with me.
While I have held the name Grace & Fire for almost 10 years, the brand name is just a name, but it's the women who make it.
I bring the market but they bring the goods.
It's the best partnership.
Its fair, considerate, and authentic in all the best ways.
I would love for you to know Silvia and Ester.
Silvia is a seamstress, a house cleaner, and a single mother. She was riding the bus to work for a prominent women married to a man in politics who treated her poorly and the wages were just not much more than the bus ticket to get there. Unfair working conditions that are far too common. I was so inspired to hear that one of Silvia's children is studying to become a doctor.
Silvia has been cleaning for the nonprofit clinic where we stayed in a rural village where she has been able to have insurance and a safe place to work. The nonprofit founders started to make leather bags about a while ago for their donors to buy at fundraising events and to allow the women work. It soon became too much for them to handle along with the nonprofit where they save babies who suffer from malnutrition. They had to make a choice.
Ester is a single mom who fled to the village a few years ago. She came to the clinic with her small child in need of help. Her child had foot rot. The nurses asked where she was living to determine the cause of the condition. When Ester took them to her home, they found that it was a tarp covering mud and standing water. Ester said it was better than her previous home with her abusive husband. She won't talk about details of that experience and all we can do is hope for her and her children's healing and health.
Esters dedication and priority is to educate her children out of poverty.
There is a school down the road that is teaching children, mostly boys. They teach the boys how to read, write, and do math but also how to become responsible men, family oriented men. The school is within walking distance from the clinic where the leather studio is and from Ester's home built with the support of the nonprofit and work from local builders.
I can't speak to the importance this nonprofit is developing. While it would be more than enough that they are saving babies lives they are also educating mothers, employing local men so they can provide for their families, and feeding people in the community through donations from the states. These new friends of mine are creating such an impact in the lives of so many and for generations to come!
For Silvia and Ester, the nonprofit has done what they can by employing them one to two days per week cleaning but there is no other work in this village and there are so many women just like Silvia and Ester desperate for work so that they can feed and educate their children.
I would love to play a roll in offering dignified and sustainable opportunity for these mommas. It is my dream to reinvest profits back into these women, allowing them to lead others and build something together. It is my goal to train Ester to sew and for Silvia to teach her. I would love to see more mothers in this village prosper with good jobs that pay well, offer child care, and medical insurance. This is a long term plan, not a quick fix.
I must be honest, sometimes I wonder what in the world I'm doing! Why am I trying to create opportunity without fully knowing the right next step?
I keep hearing a thought, that says "Trust Me"
So even though I don't know what's going to happen, I'm going to trust that I'm moving forward.
My hope is to be a small puzzle piece to a much larger picture.
I will have some bags at this event and would love for you to come by, chat, and hear more stories about Guatamala and a new found love that now lives in my heard for this community.
If you know me in person, you know I like to laugh and I like to make people laugh. I like to keep things light but it's mostly because I've seen so much darkness in the world.
I hope to be a light in the darkness and I hope you'll join me.