What do you get when you combine 13 crafty ex-pats living in Hamburg, Germany? A phenomenal amount of love that’s what. Jessica Allen is a great friend of mine who runs Gus & Ollie and makes the most adorable sock monkeys you ever did lay your eyes on. She’s an Aussie currently residing in Germany and felt a calling to rally the crafty ladies of her area for a Hamburg Working Bee for Craft Hope.

Many of you have expressed an interest in getting together with other people in your area to make projects for Craft Hope. Darby did one in Alabama back in the fall with the sock monkeys. And now Jessica lets us in on how she did one for our most recent project making bean bags for orphans in Liberia. She’s a member of Toytown and the Hamburg Stitch n Bitch group, who regularly get together and craft. In both groups, she spread the word that she was wanting to get a group together and the response was amazing. Complete strangers contacted her, wanting to help in any way they could.

Some brought their sewing machines, some brought fabric scraps, some went out and bought new fabric and whatever supplies they could find. A community coming together to help another. Beautiful.

The second part of the Working Bee was a collaboration with the American Womens Club (AWC) . So they pitched the idea to the AWC Stitch n Bitch Group and they jumped at the chance to participate.

So with Beth, AWC Secretary, as their hostess they came together, complete strangers to collaborate and work together towards this common goal of making bean bags for the children in Liberia. The women represented Australia, America, Canada, South Africa, Spain, Denmark, and Germany.

They discussed how this is a fantastic way to be able to give back to those in need, in some way (which is difficult in Germany if you don’t speak fluent German). Everyone was personally touched by the project and was eager to find out more about Craft Hope, already planning more Working Bees for the future.

This beautiful group of women completed 10 sets of bean bags, including bags to carry them in. I truly believe that people want to help, they want to do something, they just haven’t heard or been asked. All it takes is one person to make a difference in many peoples lives. Jessica is a beautiful example of just that. A big shout out and thank you to the beautiful women of the Craft Hope Working Bee in Hamburg, Germany!

Let’s keep this thing going. The more people involved, the more people we can help.

A group of girls getting together to make a difference. Thank you Janice for coordinating and the life lessons you are passing onto them. They are priceless.

How to set up your own Working Bee:

1. Get your community involved: ask friends, craft groups, church groups, facebook, children’s groups. Spread the word on message boards, through email, etc. You can start a Kids Craft Hope Working Bee or one for just adults.
2. Choose a host, location, and date to get together.
3. Gather supplies. It’s amazing how little you have to buy when people come together and bring what they already have. Some people have even received donations from local craft stores for fabric and supplies. Never hurts to ask.
4. Get together, start crafting, and have fun. It is a beautiful thing to see one community come together to help another. Not everyone is going to have the same skill set. But a collective group of individuals can accomplish quite a bit.
5. Please let us know here at Craft Hope (jade@crafthope.com) if you have started a Craft Hope Working Bee. If you set up a blog for it, let us know. We will be updating the Craft Hope site soon and will have a section for links to Craft Hope Working Bees around the world.

Spread hope!

Our numbers are climbing as we currently have over 200 people signed up to make bean bags for children in Liberia. The first bean bags have arrived at the Liberia Orphan Education Project all of the way from Australia in record setting time. It truly is an amazing gesture of international friendship and caring for children. And will also be a great social studies lesson for the Liberian children. 

The pictures of the bean bags are also beginning to come onto our Flickr page and also our Facebook fan page. Be sure to upload your pictures so others can see what you are working on and get ideas. I’m truly amazed by the tutorials that are coming in with them. There is such talent in this group and we are incredibly grateful for your willingness to share that with us.

We thought we’d take a moment to explain how the bean bags will be integrated into one of LOEP’s classroom toolkits – the Mobile Classroom. LOEP developed the Mobile Classroom concept about six years ago when we began receiving regular donations of some heavy wooden boxes with wheels. Each box is painted bright, primary colors with chalkboard paint on the large back surface, and filled with instructional materials based on a subject area. For example, a Language Arts unit contains story books and readers, magnetic letters, phonics flash cards, reading and alphabet games, posters, arts and crafts materials, and items to encourage creative play based on books contained in the unit.

Each unit contains a lesson plan binder with lesson plans that utilize the materials in the unit so that teachers can understand how to best use the materials and how to integrate them into the curriculum. Orphan schools are generally small, self-contained clusters of very small classrooms and the mobile unit can be wheeled from room to room as teachers share the units contents. Sharing the unit also encourages collaborative planning by teachers. LOEP teachers are responding very enthusiastically to that concept which is relatively new to the more traditional Liberian style of teaching.

The Craft Hope bean bags will be integrated into the Mobile Classroom units along with companion lessons for using bean bags in instruction. Number bean bag sets will go in the Math and Science Mobile units and the Alphabet sets will be contained in the Language Arts and Social Studies units.

These photos help to illustrate the Mobile Classroom concept and how teachers are trained to use instructional materials in the classroom – a totally new classroom teaching technique in Liberia. It really is humbling to think about teacher training in Liberia. Looking at this picture reemphasizes the roles teachers play in a society. The empowerment of a culture.

The Science and Math Mobile Classroom unit contains basic ingredients for making bubble mix and lesson plans for simple science lessons based on bubbles. The teachers had a great time with that one as you can see from the picture! This unit also contained ‘counting bears’ manipulatives and teddy bears for creative counting play.

The Language Arts and Social Studies Mobile Classroom unit contained materials for making paper bag puppets – teachers learned how to make puppets representing community helpers to teach a simple Social Studies lesson.

Most of the materials in the Mobile Classroom units are homemade with simple materials to stress that instructional materials do not have to be purchased ready made – this is important in Liberia where so little is available and there is no funding for classroom materials. Think about this for one moment, handmade instructional materials and no funding for classroom materials. What would classrooms look like where you live if that were the case? LOEP is an amazing organization that is changing lives. The homemade items we send spur their creative ideas on how to use what they have available. A great lesson we can take with us as well.

Thanks to everyone who makes Craft Hope what it is and spreads a little hope!

If you’d like to join us, please sign up on this post.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, it’s not going to get better. It’s not.” –  Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax

A huge thank you to all of you who have signed up to make bean bag sets for orphans in Liberia. If you have come here through one of the many fabulous blogs in the blogosphere, welcome we are glad you stopped by. Make yourself cozy and have a look around.

As of today we have over 141 people signed up to make bean bag sets for the Liberia Orphan Education Project (LOEP). And our Facebook fan page has over 700 fans. Truly incredible. Thanks to all of you for spreading the word about the people of Liberia and what we do here at Craft Hope. If you’d like to sign up for this project, you can find all of the information you need in this post.

A huge part of Craft Hope is working directly with the charities to ensure that we are providing them with what they need. A constant line of communication is open and I feel personally blessed to be on the receiving end of that line. Their testimonies are powerful. Their gratitude incomparable.

I wanted to introduce all of you to Beth. She is the super sweet lady that founded LOEP and has stepped up in a major way to help field questions, offer support and guidance for this project. Everyone say hi to Beth. “Hi Beth!” You’ll also run into her in the comments section of these posts and also on your own blogs. She’s incredibly grateful to all of you and wants you all to know it. People like Beth make the world a beautiful place.

As Beth and I were working out the details for this project, I received a sweet email that I’d like to share with all of you. She wrote…

“We really appreciate the opportunity you have given us not only to receive classroom materials but also the opportunity for others to learn about Liberia, the precious orphans, and vulnerable children there and the teachers who struggle under difficult conditions to ensure the nations future – teaching and educating the children. Their story of hope and inspiration is a privilege to witness in person and I am grateful to you for helping bring it to others through Craft Hope.”

This message resounds with me over and over again. Being a teacher myself, knowing what it’s like to want to help children, and the sacrifices made in one of the richest countries in the world. I can only imagine the struggles their teachers face day in and day out.

We have had many questions about the type of filling that goes into the bean bags so we wanted to clarify a few things for you. Here are the reasons why there are filling requirements:

Greetings friends! As I type this some of you are signing off for the day, while others are just waking up. I love that Craft Hope is made up of individuals around the world and we are able to touch lives in far corners of the globe. The group of people that make up Craft Hope is just as diverse and each individual brings with them their own stories. Stories of hope, survival, triumphs, and failures. Some wear their scars on their sleeves, while others keep them hidden and find passion in helping others silently.

A story that resonates with me is the story of adoption and foster children. The sweet letters I receive from mamas of just why a project meant so much to them. The homeless child. The parents who were unable to have a child of their own. The sense of a loss of hope. The restoration of that very hope.

I get many emails asking how we choose a particular charity. Quite honestly, it just somehow all works out. Many of the charities come directly to us, through an email asking for our assistance. Many of them holding onto a sliver of hope that we can help them. That we could just consider working with them. I am honored and humbled with each and every request that goes into my inbox. Each one read over and over again. Many times filed, for the appropriate project and occasion. Not a one overlooked or dismissed.

Here we go! Consider Project 7 officially launched as we are spreading HOPE in Liberia, West Africa. I, personally, didn’t know much about Liberia and have spent a good portion of the afternoon doing my research. Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I want you to look it up. Google it. Go see why we are needed there. Opening your eyes to the current situation in a country certainly changes your perspectives. And the beauty of Craft Hope is that it not only changes lives in the areas we are helping, but also changes the lives of those doing the giving.

This time we have partnered with the Liberia Orphan Education Project (LEOP) to provide school supplies to orphan schools in Liberia, West Africa. The LEOP started out seven years ago simply by sending crayons to Liberia and they now currently provide school supplies, teaching instructional supplies, and teacher training to these schools. The founder, Beth, sent me a sweet email asking if we could make bean bags to send to the schools. Heck ya we can!

The specific type of bean bags they are needing are the same ones found in educational resource catalogs. Bean bags with letters, numbers, colors and pictures, bean bags in animal forms and shaped as geometric figures are all available in the educational materials catalogs. These bean bags are incredibly pricey, however relatively easy to make.

One of the things that I immediately realized with this project is that it is a great group activity. They need full sets of the alphabet, numbers, etc. So please spread the word to teachers and groups who may be interested. If you don’t have a group, please connect with other Craft Hope members in the Craft Hope Nest. Or if you are feeling ambitious, please create a full set. Only full sets will be accepted.

There are specific requirements for this project since it is an educational tool and traveling to West Africa. And we have big goals this time. We are hoping to collect TWENTY SETS of each. That is, 20 sets of Alphabet bean bags, 20 sets of Shape bean bags, 20 sets of Color bean bags, and 20 sets of Number bean bags. You can see examples of what we are talking about if you click on the links in the previous sentence.

Also, because of shipping and customs issues we cannot accept bags filled with rice, beans, popcorn, or other food products. Plastic pellets, aquarium gravel, or other non-food stuffing is necessary.

Other Considerations ::
Number Bean Bag Sets: All bags need to be the same color so children learn the numbers printed on the bag and not begin to identify the bag color instead of the number (ex.  child ”reads” the red bean bag as “3″ only because it is red and not because of the “3″ printed on it).  If all number bags are the same the child will see the difference in the numbers and not the difference in the colors.

Alphabet Bean Bag Sets: Any colors are great.  Letters can be either upper or lower case or both but might be best if a standard font or style is used so that the letters are easily identified by little ones.

Of course, any other creative ways you can come up with to teach letters, shapes, numbers, and colors with bean bags will be gratefully received.

Here are some bean bag tutorials to help you along… here, here, here, and here.

The deadline for this project is May 15th. This should allow time for you to coordinate a group or make enough bean bags on your own.

Please send your completed bean bags to:
LOEP
c/o Beth Iden
370 Browntown Road
Browntown, VA  22610

And, as always, to give me a general idea of how many people we have participating please leave a comment in this post. Please tell me if you have a group, and what group, or are flying solo. If you need a group, you could always leave a comment here and try to find others that need a group. This is your community, your space, I just work here!

General housekeeping (you know the routine) ::
Please spread the word by posting about this project on your blog if you have one. Also, we have a button in the sidebar you can embed into your own site. We also just set up a Facebook fan page that you can also find in the sidebar. Become a fan to stay up to date on all of the latest Craft Hope happenings. And you can follow us on Twitter. And, and we have a Flickr group so please post your photos to this group. We’d love to see pictures of your group in action making the bean bags and the bean bags themselves.

Thanks for all you do. You truly make the world a better place.

Spread hope!

“To make a difference is not a matter of accident, a matter of casual occurrence of the tides. People choose to make a difference.” — Maya Angelou

**********************************************************************************************

Frequently Asked Questions ::

Are the number sets supposed to be 0-9 or 0-20? The example link looks like 20. — We are happy to receive whichever set you can do. 0-9 can be used in the youngest grades while 0-20 can be used for the older children.

Does it matter what type of fabric we use? — No

Can the bean bags be knit or crochet? — Yes

What colors should we use for the colors set? — Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Orange, Purple (Violet), Black, White, Grey, and/or Brown

Should we embroider the names/numbers/letters on the bean bags or could paint markers/applique, etc. be used? — Any way is fine as long as the paint is nontoxic.

** Bean bag photo provided by Rebekah Williams. Thanks Rebekah!!