Marisa and Mike Kelley: A Chance to Give Back

Many brides and grooms use their wedding gift registries to stock their homes for the rest of their lives together. Mike and Marisa Kelley saw it as a chance to give back.
 
"We're a little bit older," Marisa said. "So when we thought of what we needed, we couldn't think of anything but how that money could be so much better spent elsewhere."
 
After seeing the idea at a friend's wedding and another friend's anniversary party, Mike and Marisa decided to forgo wedding gifts; instead, they ask their guests to make donations to one of four charities. The charities were selected by Mike, Marisa and her parents. Marisa's mom, Brenda Eddy, serves on Counterpart International's Board of Directors.

"We chose Counterpart for two reasons," Marisa explained. "First, it's an organization we know about and we know that the money will be used in a worthwhile fashion. Also, Mike and I are extremely global people and the fact that Counterpart is also global holds true to our lifestyle."
 
To aid in their selection, the wedding guests were given a blurb about each charity with a link to the charity's website from the couple's wedding website. Mike and Marisa also opted out of purchasing wedding favors; instead, they set up four bowls of water—representing each charity—and asked their guests to place a floating candle in the bowl representing the charity of their choice. Each candle had a dollar value of close to $50. At the end of the night, the number of candles for each charity was totaled and that amount was donated to the charity along with the donations in lieu of wedding gifts.

September 1st, 2009 | Tags: Board of Directors, brenda eddy, marisa eddy | Category: Donor Story | Leave a comment

Dana Arbib and Farah Malik: A Peace Treaty Weaves Friendship, Fashion and Social Cause Together

Dana Arbib and Farah Malik's lives have long been intertwined with social justice, humanitarian work and accessories. After Farah's work at a human rights education non-profit organization and Dana's close connection to her father's extensive philanthropy work, it was a natural fit that any path they took would be charged with a social edict. Dana and Farah—the former a Libyan Jew and the latter a Pakistani Muslim—decided to put their love of accessories to good use for both the consumer and the artisan. The resulting fashion line, A Peace Treaty, began in 2008 with the goal to highlight the often under-appreciated work of hand-crafting cultures in politically unstable regions of the world.
 
"When we started in 2008, there was a growing understanding of eco-fashion but still not very much emphasis or attention was placed on the human rights implications in fashion production," Dana said. "A Peace Treaty is a social business setting up sustainable projects to revitalize cottage industries and family businesses at risk of closing down, but it also imparts knowledge, attitude change and a long-term readjustment within consumer culture and behavior."
 
Dana and Farah base their work on a community empowerment approach. By elevating the value of hand-crafting skills and lauding artisans who have been overlooked or have received less and less attention, they are reinvigorating local artisan economies and employing the artisans at wages up to eight times the local wage.
 
Inspired by Counterpart International's work to create enduring solutions for local communities, Dana and Farah donate nearly 10% of their profits to Counterpart International (Counterpart). A Peace Treaty has supported medical supplies in the Darfur region of Sudan, coral restoration and, most recently, reconstruction in Afghanistan.
 
"We chose Counterpart because we were impressed by the legitimate and genuine way in which they carry out work in so many different regions and program areas. With each collection and season, we shift our giving to a specific project and region that usually connects to the country the artisans are from," Farah said. "Also, Dana's father has a long history of philanthropy work and he had been directing his efforts to supporting Counterpart's work. Connecting A Peace Treaty with Counterpart was an intentional act to follow in his footsteps."
 
The scarves at A Peace Treaty are not only charged with social responsibility – they are beautiful. A Peace Treaty has been recognized throughout the fashion world including recent highlights in InStyle, New York Magazine and Marie Claire.
 
"With Farah's background in International Development and my lineage from a highly philanthropic family, we really have developed firsthand knowledge of what beautiful things certain regions have to offer," Dana said. "In our increasingly unstable times, it is an absolute promise to ourselves that we help those who live within these unstable regions by supporting their skills and craft."

June 19th, 2009 | Tags: peace treaty, scarves | Category: Donor Story | Leave a comment

The Elseys: The Impact of One Family’s Efforts

Although located thousands of miles from the humanitarian crisis in Sudan, the Elsey family in Bethesda, Maryland, were not unaffected by the plight and struggles of the Darfur people.

"At night, we sit down and watch the news as a family and we see all these kids from other countries witnessing terrible acts of violence and having to walk hundreds of miles for school or get water," Laura, a mother of three, explains. "It makes me think, 'what if that were my child?'"

This troubling thought spurred Laura, along with her husband John and children Polly and Jake, then 15 and 13 years old respectively, to take action.

"We wanted to do something more," Laura says. "One day, we were all talking about what we could do and thought one thing we can all do is walk."

The Elseys organized a "walk" in June 2007 and raised nearly $11,000 for a Counterpart shipment of medical supplies to refugees of the Darfur genocides.

"I'm part of the 'Save Darfur' campaign where you send e-mails to the White House," Laura adds. "But we wanted to do something more than that – something that might fill the belly of a child. We chose Counterpart because we know where the money is going exactly."

The Elseys secured pledges from friends and family for their more than 18 mile walk from their home in Bethesda, through Washington D.C. to Alexandria, Virginia, where friends and the youngest Elsey daughter, then 6-year-old Millie, were waiting. The walk coincided with Jake's middle school graduation from the Norwood School, prompting his classmates to donate money they had raised from fundraisers over the year to the walk. The nearly five hour walk ended at the Torpedo Factory Arts Center in Alexandria, but the lesson did not.

Counterpart used the nearly $11,000 raised by the Elsey family and leveraged it into more than $1 million worth of pharmaceuticals, including antibiotics and de-worming medicines, to sent through partner organizations to Darfur refugees who fled into neighboring Chad.

"It was amazing for the kids to see that so little can make such a difference," Laura says. "We just got $25 or $50 here and there, but it really added up!"

June 8th, 2007 | Tags: Elseys, Sudan | Category: Donor Story | Leave a comment