July 27, 2018 Friday Newville, New York

I’ve come out to my childhood home.  I meant to mow the lawn and weed the garden but almost the minute I got here it started to rain. I quickly picked a few veggies and have come indoors to write and make a garden dinner for myself.

I’ve been talking with Devon and Charlotte from the MoonCycle Bakery, a wonderful business out of Olympia Washington that makes and ships beautiful healthy confections that arrive just in time for your period. They sell to those of us past that also, but the main idea is to provide menstruating women with healthy, yummy, naturally sweet goodies for that time of the month when women really crave that sort of thing.Check out their website: www.mooncyclebakery.com.  Devon and Charlotte and I have been brainstorming about how our two organizations can  partner with each other. 

The Giving Circle in Saratoga Springs New York carried back a large duffel bag filled with Ugandan baskets for us to sell. There are 38 gorgeous handmade pieces that will help us raise money for more pads for more girls. We’ll bring those to the September party too.

Our sewing guilds in Uganda, Kenya and Malawi are producing hundreds of kits and bringing them to school girls along with our curriculum. Phoebe [from Uganda] tells us that nearly 4,000 kits have been produced in Uganda so far this year. Phoebe also just sent photos of the new batch of soap that will be added to as many kits as possible.

Soap produced by the MoonCatcher Soap-Making Cooperative in Wakiso, Uganda.

We are writing grant applications and gearing up for our Fall fundraisers. We have quite a few MoonBees scheduled and several presentations on the calendar.

We are getting more and more organized for India and I’m getting excited about the possibilities there. Maureen, Ruchika and I met for a brainstorming session at Tower Hill Gardens in Boylston, MA. We now have a pretty good idea of what we want to accomplish in India and how to go about setting up our sewing guild there.  Join us on September 21 to learn all about our plans for establishing cooperatives in India!