Every year we chose a Holiday Mission for Sela Designs. It’s always something big that stretches me beyond my comfort zone. It’s like taking a giant leap of faith and trusting that the orders will come in.
This year, our mission (drumroll please) is to provide clean water to a community in need.
Why water?
663 million people in the world live without clean water.
That’s nearly 1 in 10 people worldwide or, twice the population of the United States. The majority of these people live in rural areas and spend hours a day walking to get water.
Not only does this keep kids from going to school and parents from earning money, but the water they collect often carries diseases that can make everyone sick.
Access to clean water means education, income, and health – especially for women and kids.
Clean water changes everything.
To make this mission happen, Sela Designs will sponser a water project through charity: water.
Why charity: water?
Years ago, my husband told me about charity: water and their giving model. We both knew then that we wanted to someday to a project with them.
charity: water sends 100% of public donations into the field! That means every penny we send them goes to our water project, not to pay administrative costs.
That model is nearly unheard of. Based on our own giving model of donating 100% of profit to charity, we really connected with this.
On top of their giving model, charity: water provides amazing insight, reports, and accountability to donors. They track every dollar, provide photos and GPS coordinates for every single project.
Charity: water invests the money donated into organizations with years of experience to build sustainable, community-owned water projects!
Communities are required to be a part of and take ownership of the projects. When families are directly impacted, they are required to opt-in and help.
This is an incredible, sustainable way to help people in need.
Where?
We were given two options for water projects: a well with a hand pump in Malawi or Biosand water filters, public sanitation systems and hygiene education in Cambodia.
I simply could not decide.
I decided instead to create a poll on Instagram Stories and let the Sela Designs community of supports make the choice.
They chose to do the well project in Malawi.
I asked people to also tell me why they voted for one project over the other and the responses for Malawi were very similar: because access to water seems more important than filtration.
That seemed like very good reasoning to me and I was thrilled that people put so much thought into their votes.
How much does it cost?
My heart is pounding as I type this: the Holiday Mission will cost $10,000.
On one hand, $10,000 feels like so much money. On the other, I wonder how we can change the course of history for an entire community for just $10,000.
It’s bigger than any Holiday Mission we’ve ever done before, but I believe that together we can do it!
How can you help?
This mission will be funded through every purchase made from Sela Designs. So here’s how you can help:
- Buy jewelry – for yourself, for Christmas gifts, for birthday gifts or no reason at all!
- Share the story, mission and heart of Sela Designs with your friends and family.
- Wear your jewelry and when you get compliments (because you will) tell people where they can shop too.
- Share Sela Designs on social media. Repost our images or tag friends who might also want to be a part of this mission.
- Pin images from this blog and Sela Designs website on your Pinterest boards.
- PRAY! My team and I can work hard to make jewelry, but we believe God can cause amazing things to happen.
Together we can change the world! One piece of jewelry at a time.
