Gifts

Alli and I spent this morning organizing and packing all of the donations we collected over the past few months. One of the things we found most interesting is the amount of packaging everything seems to come in these days.  We probably threw away five to ten pounds of superfluous wrappers, cardboard, shrink-wrap, etc. which would just wind up in the trash in Haiti.  We are thankful for recycling here in the U.S., perhaps someday we can convince manufacturers to save a bit on cost and not triple-wrap every single item.

As you can see from the pictures, we have quite the assortment of shampoo, conditioner, bath gel, lotion, and other essentials like toothbrushes, toothpaste, cotton balls, and more.  All of these donations were collected through business travelers at Alli's office, as well as through my travels for work and pleasure.  In fact, what is pictured is only about half of what we are bringing.  Collecting toiletries from hotels and donating them to charitable groups, such as Healing Haiti or Global Soap Project, has become part of my routine when on the road.  For some this may seem like a nuisance, but for us it is knowing that someone that may not have access to such "luxuries" will be able to avoid disease as well as have something so simple and essential that most of us take it for granted.

We are also fortunate to bring beautiful handmade dresses for the girls we meet at the orphanages.  My stepmother and her friend are amazing seamstresses, and provided us with about 25 dresses to bring along with us (pictured to the left).  She has sent close to 1,000 dresses through an organization called Little Dresses for Africa, all made from scrap fabric, pillowcases, and ribbon.  We are really excited to hand these out and we will try and get pictures of the dresses in action once in Haiti.  It is amazing how many people are willing to provide novel means of helping others, from toiletries to dresses, to the suitcases to carry all of the goods (which will be left in Haiti for someone to use as this becomes a primary means of moving one's household goods from place to place).

We pray that all of these gifts make it to Haiti with us, and we don't have any lost luggage or mishaps along the way.