Sponsorship "Blooms"

This is not the greatest photo but just wanted to share this with you. Rhonda wanted something for us to show, when we were "on the road" with the rug, an illustration of how many women we had sponsored to date. It takes the sale of about 26 flowers for us to sponsor one women. We have sponsored 13 women so..... we put our heads together and came up with the piece above. It is an acacia tree (like an umbrella), we put 26 flowers on the tree and as one flower is sold we take one flower off of the tree. Our goal was 20 women and when one women is sponsored we add another women to the piece beside a green bucket (like the one in the rug) under the tree. When a women is sponsored, we put the flowers back on the tree and then do the process all over again. Thank you to Joan for her artistic talents. Thank you to all the ladies at the picnic our rug hooking guild branch had yesterday which totalled almost 90 women and do you know that the sun shone even though the weather forecasts said rain!!!!

Zainab Salbi, Founder of Women for Women International

We have been writing so much about our relationship with Women for Women International and I am sure there are many who would like to know more about this organization and about the woman who started this organization.

Obviously you can go on the internet to find out so much about it, but also Zainab Salbi has written a book called "Between Two Worlds - Escape from Tyranny - Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam Hussein. It might give you further insight into this incredibly courageous woman and her reasons for starting the organization.

Also there is a blog that you can look up as well http://havefundogood.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-zainab-salbi-founder-of.html. There is an interview with Zainab Salbi that might be of interest to you as well.

Number 12

This past weekend two of our members, Pat and Betty, had a nursing reunion of their graduating class and others from Kingston General Hospital. I won't mention the year, we will just keep it shrouded in secrecy!!! They had approximately three days of catching up with everyone, talking, eating and probably a couple of glasses of wine in there somewhere but.......again because of their generosity, we have been able to sponsor another woman....!!! I will also mention that for Christmas instead of exchanging presents, Pat and her brother give to a charity so she asked her brother, on her behalf, to donate to our Congo Project.

Thank you to Pat and Betty and the ladies of their graduating class for sponsoring "sister No. 12". We have been matched up with one so far - it takes time to do this, there is a process to make sure that the right match is made so as soon as we are able, we will discreetly give some details of our "sisters" and how they are doing. And if they will provide us with a photo I will add that as well.

Did we Say 6, 7 & 8?

At the end of May, many of us ventured to Kitchener to participate in the Ontario Hooking and Craft Guild (OHCG) Annual. This is a time for many to connect with friends from various parts of the province, to see the absolutely incredible rugs that people do and also to do a little "retail therapy". Ontario is a big province and not all of us are close to rug hooking distributors. I have still not figured out if I am inspired or intimated by what I see people do. I do have to mention that one of our members, Christine Gibson, won first prize for Fine Cut of her Monkey, her teacher being Jon Ciemiewicz. Congratulations to Chrisine. I will post a photo as soon as I can get one.

Needless to say, we took our beautiful Congo Rug with us and for those of you who are faithful readers of this blog, you will note that I said in a previous post that we were up to number 5 and as a result of our going to the annual we would be looking at sponsoring number 6, 7 & 8. Well we did but........also number 9, 10 & 11! We were over the moon as a result of the generosity of spirit that the women of the OHCG displayed and the support that we received for the Women of the Congo. The OHCG has been so supportive and have always given us some time to talk about the project and also to give us space so that we can display the rug and sell our flowers. Rhonda did a fine job again this year along with Vanna #1, Nancy and Vanna # 2, Pen. Rhonda took the time to explain how the rug was finished according to our visit with Julie Hughes who is a conservist with the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. Marjorie Francis, who does absolutely beautiful quilting, oversaw the backing along with Sheila, Kim, and others in record time and did a superb job. I think Julie Huges would be proud. Hopefully we will be able to meet with her and let her see that we listened and listened well and her time was not in vain.

In her outgoing speech, the President of the Guild for the past two years, Jay Allison, pointed out that as a group it is not only the rug hooking that inspires us but it is the women that we meet along the way, the friendships formed, the generosity of time and spirit that so many of the women display and we can't forget to mention that many have struggles of their own that they have to manage on a daily basis but somehow they always seem to come through in a time of need. I think that it was definitely a result of how well we did for the Women of the Congo. A special thank you to someone, and I won't mention the name, who opened her heart and sponsored one woman with her generosity....!!

I will post the Monkey and also a piece that Marjorie quilted as soon as I can get a photo.

Spring Thing and Sponsorship No. 4

This past weekend our guild was invited to participate in Open Doors Ontario at the "Spring Thing" at Springfield House in Escott. Open Doors Ontario is province wide and basically it is to get people interested in the "goings on" in their respective communities and for us in this part of the world, we were able to display in two historical buildings in the area.

Springfield House is now the Escott Library having been restored and it is a wonderfully, charming old building that once served as a resting place for those travelling between Montreal and Toronto in the the late 1800's.

We set up the Congo rug, as well as many other rugs belonging to the members of our very prolific guild, and over the course of two days there was always someone there to demonstrate how we rug hook. It was great!!

We had our flowers on sale and as a result of that we have been able to sponsor 4th woman and are very, very close to our Number 5 sponsorship. We are off to our Annual Ontario Rug Hooking Guild meeting in Kitchener so we are all very busy making flowers so that we can possibly sponsor number 5, 6 and seven!! I will be back to tell you how it all went. It usually is a great time and Rhonda will be talking about the rug again this year filling everyone in on our progress.

Thanks to all that so generously donated to the cause this past weekend.

P.S. You will note in the photo our little furry friend is wearing her "Women Matters" brooch. All of the women who have participated have opted to wear a turquoise flower with our Women Matters ribbon attached.

Sponsorship No. 3

Here is proof, on Friday, May 8th, we mailed out our third sponsorship money order. How appropriate that we were able to do this so close to Mother's Day.....hopefully we can give a Mom some hope for her and her children's future.

Thank you to the Evangelical Lutheran Women of Good Shepherd in Brockville that helped us to make this possible so quickly...thank you, thank you!

Women for Women in Brockville

The Evangelical Lutheran Women of Good Shepherd, Brockville, ON welcomed us to an evening of great food and an opportunity to display and talk about the Congo Project. Rhonda gave the ladies a brief history of what we are doing, why we are doing it and gave a brief synopsis of what is happening and why in the Congo.

Once again we took our flowers to sell and we would like to thank the ladies for their gracious donations for the cause. Some bought flowers while others just gave money and because of their generosity we were able to sponsor another woman through Women For Women International.

In the closing remarks for the evening, on woman reminded us to pray for these women in the Congo one cannot deny the power of prayer.

Thank you Sheila, for inviting us to this wonderful evening sharing with women for women. God Bless