BLESS THE EACKER FAMILY!

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Eric Eacker, a local Santa Barbara Firefighter and homeschool dad, is bravely battling prostate cancer.  The bills, medical procedures, unexpected complications, and emotional stress are overwhelming.  When I asked his wife, Carrie, what they could use right now, she said a family vacation to get away from it all.  I would love for their communities to help give that to them!  (And I know new financial needs have come up since, so we bless them to spend the money however they need it.)  Thank you in advance for your generosity!

Please donate to my personal Paypal account (https://www.paypal.me/melsunuk) through the friends and family option, otherwise the they will take a percentage away.  And I will send it directly to the Eackers.

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Headed to HAITI!

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I am thrilled to announce that – after almost 3 years with Trades of Hope – I am going on Trades of Hope vision trip to HAITI! I will be traveling with 12 other Compassionate Entrepreneurs from around the country between March 23rd – 29th to visit our 2 artisan groups there.
Despite being a resource-filled country with beautiful people, colonization and natural disasters have caused Haiti to have an overwhelming number of “poverty orphans” – children whose parents turn them over to an orphanage because they can’t afford to care for them.

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Finding Balance in a World of Screens

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I have had multiple conversations with my fellow parenting friends over the years about how to maintain balance with our kids’ screen usage.  My wiring has a difficult time micromanaging (especially four kids) with timers, charts, daily check-ins, etc.  It’s very difficult for my personality to do the same thing every day – except breathe and that’s involuntary.   I’m more of an “ideas” gal, so I came up with a little saying that I’ve generally stuck to. In the spirit of raising balanced humans, I typed, printed, and hung a little diddy that says:

Read, work, and clean before you play or screen.”

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Empower Retreat 2017 in quotes…

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It was another wonderful Trades of Hope Retreat – this time in Music City – Nashville, TN.  Here are the most inspiring quotes that have me on FIRE with HOPE to continue empowering women around the world out of poverty!!!

“There are women I’ve got to go back and save.” – Katrina, one of our Thistle Farms artisan partners who came out of years of addiction and prostitution to make the beautiful Love Heals set.

nnppp0744at08un7-2-768x513.jpg“Women represent half of the world’s population and therefore, half of its potential.  We are missing out when half of the ideas are silenced; when half of the potential work force that could boost national economies are not working; when half of the population are not being equally represented in the laws, policies, and governments around the world.  Poverty will not end until women are empowered.” Elisabeth Huijskens, co-founder of Trades of Hope Continue reading