Two Peninsula projects included in unusual gift catalog
By Diane Urbani de la Paz, Peninsula Daily News
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And at holiday time, compassion fatigue can go right along with gift-buying burnout.
Carolyn Kempkes hopes to make the next few weeks a little easier.
She publishes the Alternative Gift Project catalog, a guide to 15 Western Washington charities, including two based on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The 44-page catalog, available on the Web and in hard copies, is produced each year by Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church on Bainbridge Island.
But its reach is worldwide - like the groups described within.
One is the Sequim-based Mujeres de Maiz Opportunity Foundation, which raises money for scholarships, computers and eyeglasses for girls and women in rural Chiapas, Mexico.
Retired Sequim High School teacher Judith Pasco, who co-founded the organization in 2006, is a member of the Olympic Unitarian Universalist Church in Agnew.
Collection plate
As is the custom among Unitarians, she asked the Bainbridge congregation to pass around a collection plate for the Mujeres fund.
"They said no," Pasco recalled - because the Cedars church had a bigger idea: the Alternative Gift Project.
When Kempkes chooses groups to appear in the catalog, she looks for those spending less than 10 percent of their proceeds on administrative costs.
She strives for a mix of 50 percent locally focused organizations, 25 percent international and 25 percent Unitarian-affiliated.
"Mujeres hooked me when I read about their work," Kempkes said, "and when I received their photos and saw the proud and happy faces of previous scholarship and eyeglass recipients."
Pasco, who traveled last summer to a women's cooperative in Chiapas, reported that the Mujeres foundation has funded college and secondary school scholarships for five young women, provided eye examinations and glasses for eight, organized and funded a computer workshop and delivered two computers.
'Whole community'
"When you educate a woman, you educate a whole community," goes the mantra of Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, the story of his work in rural Pakistani schools.
Pasco and Kempkes share that belief.
And catalog shoppers who choose a gift to the Mujeres de Maiz Opportunity Foundation can pay for a month of secondary school for one young woman for $25, an eye exam and glasses for $40 or a month of schooling plus transportation and food for $64.
These contributions go into the Mujeres scholarship fund, and givers can learn more at www.MujeresdeMaizOF.org
Mangrove Action Project
Just as Pasco and her Sequim foundation reach out to rural Latin America, the Port Angeles-based Mangrove Action Project embraces India, Thailand and other Asian countries where shrimp farming has savaged the coastal forests.
"The mangroves are very important for the world's fishery," said Alfredo Quarto, MAP's founder.
"They absorb a lot of carbon, too, so protecting them is very important for reducing the effects of climate change."
Quarto, who has a small organic farm just east of Port Angeles, said dining decisions here affect the mangrove-shaded ecosystems on the other side of the world.
"Shrimp consumption has doubled, and that's causing the market to grow," so Asian farmers continue to rip out the mangroves, he said.
MAP, meanwhile, "is doing mangrove restoration work, and training people in those communities in the ecologically sound methods," of fishing and forestry.
In the Alternative Gift Project catalog are several options: $35 for printing of mangrove curriculum for distribution in a town where mangroves grow, or $50 to restore a quarter-acre of the trees.
More information is at www.MangroveActionProject.org.
Why worry about the plants on another continent, when we have so many pressing problems in the United States?
"We all live on the same planet," is Quarto's unhesitating answer.
The catalog also includes such groups as Helpline House, which provides fresh produce to needy families in Kitsap County, and the Bainbridge YWCA ALIVE Shelter for women who've fled abusive partners.
Different kind of shopping
Kempkes acknowledged that this kind of shopping can have its own challenges.
"I personally find it very difficult, especially when I look at what a small amount of money can do for someone, wildlife or the environment . . . that $40 can provide the gift of clear vision to a woman in Chiapas, Mexico, and $50 can restore a quarter acre of mangroves to help protect local people's livelihoods, and coastlines from destructive storms, is amazing to me.
"I narrow it down by thinking about what the recipient of my gift might connect with. I usually buy my daughter's teacher a gift that would support a student or teacher instead of a knick-knack for her desk," Kempkes added.
"My daughter loves animals, so I will probably get shelter care and food for a baby raccoon for her through West Sound Wildlife Shelter this year."
Givers receive a small certificate describing the gift, Kempkes said, so there's something to open on Christmas or Hanukkah.
Orders take two weeks to fill, so alternative shoppers shouldn't wait too long.
The catalog itself is a good read, with quotations from Emily Dickinson and Mahatma Gandhi illuminating its pages.
Near the end comes this from Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice:"
"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world."
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THE ALTERNATIVE GIFT Project catalog, featuring 15 nonprofits - including two from the North Olympic Peninsula - is available at www.CedarsUUChurch.org.
Scroll down to the Quick Links bar and click on Alternative Gift Project Catalogue.
To have a copy mailed, write to Cedars Unitarian Universalist Church, P.O. Box 10175, Bainbridge Island, WA 98110, or phone 206-780-0373.
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Sequim Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: December 02. 2007 9:00PM