A letter and update from our Founder and US Director, Diane NesselhufDear Friends, Most of us have choices. This week, I chose to have my grandkids come and visit. They are 7 and 3. As they get older they will have activities and more friends and might not want to spend this time with Grandma. I have decided that I will be very careful in my life. I won’t go to a place where there are crowds; I will wear my mask when I go out in public, and I will keep on sanitizing. I won’t, however, be fearful. I won’t give up seeing people who make my heart happy. As I think about these choices that many of us have, I think about our friends in Guatemala. I have been in correspondence with many NGO’s (non-government organizations) that are there. Many of these groups are doing food distributions. This is really important. Guatemala has had a national lock down several times and may have one coming up for 15 days. In a country where so many people live in poverty, this will be devastating for many families. Many of these families have no choice except to ask for food. I think the artisans we work with in many communities do have choices. They have choices, because we are offering them work. Our philosophy at Sharing the Dream is to give work, not handouts, but in this time of turmoil and starvation what do we do? It would be easy to start handing out food bags. Is this the right thing for us? This question has been on our minds for weeks. This past week, the Guatemalan staff asked if we should start distributing food, as so many people are hungry. It would be so easy to do this. It is hard to decide, so we stepped back and did some research. We contacted several friends in communities where we have programs. We learned that there is a lot of food distribution going on, and that like any tragedy, most of the resources come immediately. What we need to do for long-term sustainability for families is to keep on giving people work. Through the generous donations we have received, we have been able to do just that. It is difficult for our Guatemalan staff to get the orders and money to the artisans, but they have been working very hard to do it. We have been able to purchase from eight groups. This week, we will have a shipment come up that includes ceramic mugs, jewelry, and scarves. These orders were all done during the past several weeks. People are eager for work. I think we may have to reevaluate what we are doing every week. This week, the staff took food to our elders again. We have asked them to look at the elders’ extended families to see how they are doing and if they are able to get food. We are also looking at our scholarship students’ families. In Guatemala, like in many places, when the food first comes it goes to people who know how to work the system and the people who really need it don’t receive it. There may come a time when most of the other organizations that do food distributions leave and we may have to step up. We will be there then. We will do it with thought and with preparation, but for now we will stick to our philosophy of giving work. Sharing the Dream is in these communities permanently, and we don’t want to be seen as the hand out organization. We want the local people to know that we believe in them and we expect accountability. That may be in the form of a good artisan product or our scholarship students doing their volunteer work. We want people to move forward, and I think the best way to do that is to believe they have worth and merit and can sustain their families. We can’t deviate from our mission, which is to create long term sustainability. This is really hard now. We are so thankful for all of you who have donated and bought items in our online store. We could not do this without you. Because of all of your help, we are able to stick with our mission. We will be reopening our Vermillion store and Sioux Falls Marketplace on June 4th. We will start by opening Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I don’t foresee us having lots of customers. If there is another surge in the virus, we may have to close again. We want our volunteers and customers to be safe. We are really counting on our online sales at this point, so we thank everyone who has done an order and who has passed the information on to friends and family. I would also like to do a big thank you to many of you who gave part or all of your stimulus check to us. I know there are many organizations who need our help right now, so thank you for believing in Sharing the Dream. With your continued support we can continue to provide work for our Guatemalan friends and partners. We will keep you updated. Until then be safe, wear a mask and love those people dear to you. Diane Nesselhuf Founder/Director Sharing the Dream in Guatemala Opportunities:
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A letter and update from our Founder and US Director, Diane NesselhufDear Friends, We are all in this together. I have lived for seven decades, and I have never experienced what we are experiencing now. Many times in my life I have seen different parts of the world go through a traumatic event. There have been wars, natural disasters, shootings, and other awful things. When this happens, people circle around those who have experienced the terror and are able to comfort and help them. Who circles around us now? The whole world is within the circle. This seem insurmountable. It is up to us to reach within the circle and help each other. Just like every place in the world, our friends in Guatemala are in the circle. In a country where poverty is already an everyday occurrence, the pandemic only adds to the people having to live day to day. Here in the U.S. most of us can buy food for weeks as we have refrigerators and freezers. Our friends in Guatemala rely on the local markets to buy much of their food every day. Many of these markets are now closed. There are several organizations that are handing out food. This is a blessing for many families. Our philosophy at Sharing the Dream is different. Of course we give food to our elders, as they have no other way of receiving food. We have continued delivering food to them the past several months and will continue to do so. We have been placing product orders with our artisans. It has become more and more difficult for the artisans, as many cannot travel out of their communities to buy the materials they need to fulfill the orders. Our staff has had to rethink how they do their day-to-day tasks. How do we get money to our artisans when we sometimes can’t get to the bank and artisans can’t get out of the village to receive it? In Santiago where we have many programs, the government has shut down the village so that people cannot go in or out. We have asked our staff there to stay home for two weeks. This is difficult for them, as they really want to go to the office to get things done. Their health is important to us. We will continue to place orders, and as things clear up in certain areas of the country, we will be able to get the orders and the money to our artisans. This takes creative thinking. This takes all of us together to reach each other in the circle. You don’t have to be physically present with another person to touch them. Many of you have already done this by your orders from our online store and your donations. We are truly thankful for all of you who have contributed and ordered from our website. You are making a difference. Since our two brick and mortar stores are still closed, ordering online is important. I love this quote from Harriet Tubman. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” You may think that it doesn’t seem like much when you give an order or a donation. It does make a difference. It makes a difference to the artisan who now has money to feed their family. It makes a difference to the elder who has a meal. It makes a difference to our Guatemalan staff who can quarantine themselves tor two weeks knowing that they are not losing their jobs. All of us together can continue to reach for the stars to change the world. We have added to our online store, and we are offering a spring sale. Please check out our sale page online. There are some great deals. Thanks again for being a dreamer. Thanks for reaching out in our world circle and making a difference. Be safe. Wear that mask and keep the physical distance. Diane Nesselhuf Founder/Director Sharing the Dream in Guatemal Opportunities:
 Artisans work to make beaded jewelry at the Elder Center and Bead Shop in Santiago A Letter and Update from our Founder and US Director, Diane NesselhufDear Friends, Tuesday is Giving Tuesday Now. I wanted to write a note, but I didn’t want to just ask for a donation. I wanted it to be meaningful to all of the people who have been so generous. I have heard the expression, what goes around comes around. I wasn’t always sure what that meant. Sometimes I have seen it in negative terms. I now see it very positively with Sharing the Dream. Many of you have given donations and bought items from our online store. Does it make a difference? How does it come around? I saw that happen last week. Because of your giving and buying, we have money to buy artisan products so that the artisans can buy food and feed their families. Seven of the artisans groups we work with have benefited. Who are these people? We ordered fabric from a foot loom group high up in the mountains of Guatemala. This group is one of the poorest groups we work with in Guatemala. We will be using this fabric for newly designed kitchen items. Who will sew these products? A group of sewers we work with in Chichicastenago. We ordered baskets from two different groups; the pine needle baskets will come from a group in the mountains called Adelanto. Our volunteer in Guatemala, Oonagh, is working with this group to design beautiful baskets with thread in them. You can see some of these baskets online, and new designs will be coming soon. We are giving orders to two of the back strap weaving groups to make matching table runners. These will be beautiful. We also ordered fabric and scarves from these groups. The second basket group is in the jungle. It is called Amasaja and is a group of over 50 women in two villages in Chiquimula. They use palm and coconut leaves to weave baskets. We gave them a large order, too. We ordered ceramic mugs from a group that is around Lake Atitlan. They gave us samples of new designs and we ordered over 50 mugs. This will help them to survive. We gave a big order to the Sharing the Dream bead group for jewelry. They were lacking orders and had been working on new designs. The eight workers will be filling this order from their homes. It takes a lot of work to coordinate all these activities while still making sure that the elders are getting food and hygiene supplies and our scholarship students are being tutored. That is where the staff in Guatemala comes in. Your donations help us to continue to pay their salaries so that they can keep doing good work and help their families and the hundreds of families that we work with to sustain themselves. So what goes around comes around. You have donated or bought products. That money is used to order items from our artisan groups. When we receive these products, we will sell them and have more money to continue to buy more products. You are not giving a one-time gift. Your gift multiplies over and over. We have many other groups in Guatemala we want to order from right now and who need the orders. With your support we will be able to do this. These times can be the worst of times or the best of times. It is how we look at it. I hope there is a silver lining for each and every one of you. Stay healthy, practice social distancing and if you are out, please wear a mask. Diane Nesselhuf Founder/Director Sharing the Dream in Guatemala Opportunities:
 An artisan from the pine needle basket group Adelanto works on a basket for Sharing the Dream |
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