Plant With Purpose quick office tour!

posted by Corbyn

In case you have never been to the office we figured we would give you all a super quick glance into the San Diego Headquarters for Plant With Purpose! We are looking forward to bringing you more video from the office and the field in the future! If you receive the blog to your email click here to check out the tour on the blog page. Come by and visit us sometime if you are in the San Diego area!

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Corbyn Small serves as Plant With Purpose’s Outreach Coordinator. He cultivates relationships with donors, churches, artists and musicians to generate interest and enthusiasm for Plant With Purpose’s life-changing programs.

Knocking Socks Off and Transforming Lives

by Aly Lewis

The verdict is in: my socks were knocked off. By Plant With Purpose’s 2009 Planting Hope Gala last Saturday, that is. It was a delightful evening of high energy Plant With Purpose supporting, socializing, and celebrating.

Here are the top 3 reasons my socks really were knocked off:

1. I didn’t trip in my heels all night, as I gallivanted around catching up with old friends, classmates, and coworkers, sneaking Hershey’s kisses off the silent auction tables, and sharing my Plant With Purpose savvy with anyone who would listen.

2. Journey to Africa By far one of the most meaningful parts of the evening was getting to meet Edith Banzi. Edith is our local director in Tanzania and we had the honor of hearing her talk about the amazing work and progress that is taking place in our program there. Mama Floresta, as she’s know throughout the communities, shared about the latest projects—double dug gardens, wood saving stoves, and Village Community Banks—talked about the transformation she’s seen in the lives of the farmers she works with—improved incomes, increased confidence, and hope for the future—and gave us a little taste of the excitement, dedication, and compassion she shares with farmers and families in her part of the world. It’s a privilege to join with partners like Edith in this transformational work.

3. Rolling in the Benjamins I’m not going to spill the financial beans or steal Kate’s Gala recapping thunder, but I will say that this year’s gala was our most successful gala in Plant With Purpose history! The big bucks aside, the fact that over 300 people chose to spend their Saturday evening learning about, celebrating, and supporting Plant With Purpose is a huge encouragement to me. Seriously. I’ll stop here before the Aly Lewis Cry Fest has a chance to begin.

Anyways, check out these fun pics from the evening and stay tuned for Kate’s Official Gala Recap to be posted tomorrow.

*PS If anyone has found my knocked-off-socks please return them to the Plant With Purpose office at your convenience. My sockless feet are not liking the cold fall nights.

Learning to Love, In Manageable Chunks

by Aly Lewis Paper or plastic? The haunting question of the millennium symbolizing the sheer volume of choices the average American makes on a given day. If I weren’t an avid supporter of paper over plastic this question would induce a mini-panic attack every time I found myself face-to-face with a checkout boy or girl. In theory. Despite my pleasure at feigning displeasure at all of the choices I have to make on a daily basis, the truth is I love being in control. What really stresses me out or leaves me beleaguered (my new favorite word) are the things I can’t choose. As much as we’d like to charge forward as autonomous, capable human beings, there are a lot of things we can’t control. Where we were born, for example. Who our parents are. Whether or not our retirement fund has decreased by 70% in the past six months—not that mine was anything substantial to begin with. Recently I’ve come to the mini-epiphany that regardless of my circumstance or how I feel about a situation or all of the million and one factors that conspire to render me paralyzed and hopeless, I can still choose love. Maybe you’ve all realized this years ago and I’m just a bit of late bloomer, but I find it incredibly empowering to know that I can choose my response. I can’t choose whether or not the world is fair or children die of starvation in Africa (well, not as directly as I’d like), but I can choose my attitude and my next steps. I wrote earlier about manageable chunks, or small things we can do to make a difference in the world, and still think they’re the best way to bring about lasting change, the best way to learn to choose love. And I guess this isn’t so much of a new epiphany as more of an addendum to my theory that baby steps get the snowball rolling (to mix metaphors). It’s those baby, baby steps of selflessness and compassion that spur us toward becoming more loving, more compassionate, and more fully engaged in our world. The knowledge that I can choose to love and empower and give through my thoughts and actions is becoming exceedingly redemptive for me. I can make a difference little by little. I can learn and grow little by little. I can love little by little. Hound me later if you think I’m being trite, but welcome to my new obsession: “manageable chunks of love.”

I thought a wedding was just about two people?

This last week I was a groomsman in a good friend’s wedding back in Arizona where I grew up. Aside from the sweltering heat and the need to blast my air conditioner in my car at every hour of the day to stay cool, the wedding and events surrounding it were spectacular. The bride and groom met in China as counselors for a high school mission trip from which my friend returned posing the question to me, “would you like to see the girl I am going to marry?” It sounds like a line from a cheesy chick flick, but those were, in fact, his exact words and a year and a half later my friend married the girl of his dreams. I am writing about my friend’s wedding because they are a great example of selflessness in a world that can sometimes seem like “it’s all about me.” Always putting others before themselves, my friends chose to highlight a few non-profit organizations by putting frames on each table at the wedding that told about causes that they support (working at a non-profit myself, I cannot express how effective this kind of exposure can be.) Another gesture of goodwill that the newlyweds showed was to purchase TOMS shoes as a groomsmen present to be worn during the reception. TOMS shoes is a non-profit that is dedicated to giving away a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes that they sell, “One for One” as they say. The wedding party was anything but small, the bride was able to cut her half down to just eight, which is impressive for a girl coming from a family of 13 kids (no wonder she is selfless too). With a large bridal party comes a large groomsmen party and because of the bride and grooms decision to support TOMS shoes and to represent them at their wedding, 8 children in need of a pair of shoes will have that need met by a great organization. At an event that is meant to focus solely on two individuals, more and more we are starting to see those couples turning the attention toward others in an effort to make a difference in the lives of the less fortunate. Here at Plant With Purpose, we have received sizeable donations contributed specifically for a wedding so that the bride and groom can tell all of their guests that a tree has been planted in each of their names as a thank you for attending their wedding. I would be curious to know if anyone else has ever seen charitable giving at a wedding and would love it if you would share! Best of luck to my newlywed friends as you continue in a life of love, happiness, and putting others needs before your own. Corbyn Small Outreach Coordinator