A friend of hers went to Haiti with a group from the church and was appalled at the filth and trash that was everywhere. Plastic and glass bottles in the streets, polluted water, and trash everywhere. She went to the orphanage there and learned that parents who couldn’t find work just left their children there because they couldn’t afford to feed them.
Well, to make a long story short, she had a hobby of taking plastic bottles and cutting them into 1” strips then with heat and dye colored them and formed them into objects that she could then use for jewelry. She would take glass bottles and break them into small pieces and run them through a tumbler to make colored glass beads.
She stood at the door of the orphanage and offered $4 (which is a large wage there) a day to women who would learn to do the same thing in Haiti. She offered $1 a day to their children who were able to collect the bottles. She now has 30 families who have stayed together because of that and brings the finished jewelry here to the states to sell and the money goes back to Haiti to buy water purification systems.
She and my daughter are now pretty much full time trying to expand that business. Teaching self sufficiency to my daughter paid of well.
Very nice. Great example. Standing in a true cesspool of poverty, she took literal trash and with creativity & industry & marketing started a business and created profitable jobs AND gets enough “corporate profit” to fund charitable capital. Thank you for that story; I’ll relay it.
And to think these “poor jobless” #OccupyWallStreet types express their hopelessness via tweets from iPhones (when they could be starting & running businesses with the same equipment).