Philanthropy

I find my shop changing complexion a little bit. I think the fundraising activity of my various friends is having much to do with that. It started with Nick's Cwood hospital marathon, then Kevin's Christmas in Cambodia challenge. Discovered with Nick's run that it's much more immediate to donate funds in my PayPal account to a charity thru Canada Helps than taking it off my credit card.

Solution - build up more funds in my PP account to support the charitable initiatives of my friends.

Next - create an item specifically dedicated to my 'pet' charities where all or portions of sales from such can be transferred directly over.

Also wanted an easy to dash off item that can go on a Christmas sale table and become the item identified with that charity.

Hence the Kevin's Kids Cap was born. In Kevin's online pics is a photo of a little kid in Oudong village wearing a baseball style cap. As long as I can dash it off in an evening or a sitting, I don't mind dedicating the funds to charity.

I have one dedicated to WICM, an earflap hat, 100 % wool. The idea here would be that if I make extra and they don't sell, they can obviously be sent out to the mission. For these I wouldn't do in pick your own colour, but stick to the on sale colours I find at GT yarn and crafts. Am thinking a photo of the current working colour at end of listing should do the trick.

And then given my family's history with kidney disease and transplants, I thought I could do a 'kidney beanie.' This would work up best in the royal and white KF of C company colours. Am thinking a kidney/peanut shaped tassel topper. Maybe not all proceeds from this, but say half is fair. Next step - prototype.

Now that I think of it, my inspiration goes farther back. I love Frankie Brown's patterns on Ravelry. She works it that her patterns are free, but you can give a free will donation on her UK Giving Page, which is linked in to her dedicated charity, the research foundation. I see that her donations are up over 2,600 pounds (sorry, don't know the html symbol). So what's that, + $5000? Amazing! I totally want to be like Frankie when I grow up!

So now that I have all these philanthropy ventures I need a place to put them. As a result, my trunk sale idea is going quite well. I'm getting the church booked for Dec. 3. My friends Tye Dye Daddy 0 and Erika are in. We're all getting pretty pumped about it. Of course I will have my books for the mission trip available. More as we get closer!