The Latest and Greatest

It has been brought to my attention that it's been a while since my last blog entry.  So here's the latest:  We've found a sponsor.  We are now a ministry of Christ Community Mennonite Church in Schaumburg, IL.  What does that mean?  In short, we're legal. (Pause for cheering.)  The church has, in effect, lent us its non-profit status, which in addition to getting us tax-exempt status, allows us to receive tax-deductible donations.  Now when people write us checks, they write them payable to the church, then the church pays us.  It's a slower process than what we had been doing--paying the ladies in cash--but it's more reliable and keeps us out of trouble with the IRS.  Plus it forces the artisans to use a bank account, which is a new concept for many.  We'd like to get a little financial literacy training into the works since most of our artisans have never had a job here and have relied on others to keep their accounts.
We've also filed our name with the county, which was an interesting process.  We had to put an announcement in a local paper that we'd be doing business as Resilient Crafts.  So I'm sure all you avid readers of the Hinsdale Hinsdalean sat up and took notice.
Our next step legally will be to file for non-profit status on our own, but there are several things that need to happen before that.  We'll need to raise some funds to pay a lawyer to help us.  Some of that we'll be able to get via sales, and hopefully we can make up the rest in donations.  We may need as much as $3,000.  Ideally then we can apply for grants and possibly branch out into other areas of ministry as we see fit.
Our goal for the time being is to get some summer/fall sale locations.  We'll be hitting up all our contacts at local churches. Stay tuned for future sale announcements.  We've got some great new summer merchandise.  Our artisans have switched from knitting to jewelry-making for the summer.  It was a slow beginning because very few of our artisans had any experience, but now that they've learned a few basic skills, their innate senses of artistry are starting to come out.  Several have been coming up with their own designs and we're happy to let them do their thing.  Our role now tends to be giving advice on which colors do and don't go well together for an American eye.  I never knew how nuanced color tastes can be.  We try to encourage creativity while making sure our products our sale-worthy.

During the winter we outgrew the apartment living room we were meeting in.  We now meet in the community room of Christ Community Church in Wheaton.  They've been very gracious to allow us to use the space and keep a lot of our stuff there.  It has the added bonus of having fresh coffee (pause for another cheer) and childcare rooms available so the women can bring their kids and pretty much forget about them for a few hours.  I imagine it's a lovely break for the moms.
The church has also plowed up a significant portion of its 'back 40' to have a community garden for refugees. Many of our artisans and their families have their own plot and have started growing vegetables.  So now our Saturdays always begin with us all checking up on the gardens, tracking the progress of everyone's tomatoes, peppers, mustard greens, eggplants, and more.  The families are very appreciative.  Most of them live in apartments surrounded by parking lots and miss being able to grow their own food.  Now they walk to the church when the weather permits and work in the garden.

I'll post again when we nail down the date of our next sale.