Hope smells like honey: Christmas shopping helps create jobs

Sewing work for women in Haiti provides needed income

Christmas Shopping Party Helps Create Haitian Jobs
It’s a tired old cliche. What do you give people for Christmas when they already have all they want and more? Ann Piper has an idea: hope. It will be on sale at a benefit held at Little Savannah restaurant December 4th, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.

While here in the U.S. we struggle with 9% unemployment, a staggering 75% of Haitian women and men have no way to earn a living for their family. “So Haiti’s college graduates leave the country,” she explains. “The largest source of income for Haitians comes from people who have immigrated somewhere else and now send money home.” But the vast majority of Haiti’s people do not have college degrees, and they need work as much as they need anything else.

The world’s attention has been focused on “fixing” Haiti for several years; there have been some remarkable successes establishing schools and medical clinics. But Piper believes there is a missing element. Without a way to support their families, hope for a better life is impossible. So Piper is raising funds to create jobs. A modest fundraising effort made it possible to lease land and purchase tractors; thirteen Haitians now have new jobs producing fruits and vegetables, and the land also supports bee farming. Now she’s raising more money to expand the effort.

“We have honey for sale, and Christmas candles made from the beeswax,” Piper says. Haitian craftspeople have created original gift items by hand that make Christmas shopping simple: aprons, napkins, bags, skirts, throw pillows, pillow cases, wood carvings and jewelry. “For people who really do have too many things,” Piper says, gifts in honor of a loved one are commemorated with a lovely card. The money is slated for use in a food program and for preschool scholarships.

If almost everybody you know has all they want and more, give them a candle that smells like hope this Christmas, or a handbag full of a promising future. “I hope you’ll join us at Little Savannah the first Sunday in December,” Piper concludes. The event is free and includes snacks from the award-winning restaurant. This Christmas, pass the word: hope is sweet, anywhere you find it.