One of our absolute favorite Pamba Toto product lines is “Toto for Toto” (kids for kids). We facilitate projects made by the Sanctuary of Hope kids and sell the items to generate income for the homes. I described my personal joy of beading with the kids in this blog entry: One of the Best Days of My Life.
We at Pamba Toto have gone dormant for awhile after the hubbub of the holidays, but be assured that like perennials quietly sending out roots under the thawing ground of winter, we are ramping up for summer and fall.
I (Colleen) can’t wait to set foot in Kenya in less than two weeks! I’m heading across the world with a team of twenty-six other people, traveling on behalf of Hope’s Promise, the non-profit which oversees Sanctuary of Hope (SoH), the family-style homes for orphans to which Pamba Toto donates our profits. Our team will implement a day-camp for the SoH kids, and one of the sessions will be a workshop to create bracelets for Pamba Toto.
Last year when I was in Kenya, the kids made a bunch of beaded stretch bracelets and they sold like hot cakes here in Colorado! This year, hopefully the kids can make enough inventory to supply other points-of-sale in Montana and Texas.
Stacy W and Esther W were especially prodigious in their beading last year and accounted for much of my 2016 inventory.
Meanwhile, Esther K melted my heart and a friend’s – she worked diligently for more than an hour making just one bracelet. It could go to no other than my friend who named Esther soon after her birth and began sponsoring her as soon as she came home to SoH.
Thelma, left, on the day she met and named Esther in Mathare Valley slum 
Esther and Thelma a few years later 
Esther making Thelma’s bracelet
Yesterday was too fun as I poured beads all over the place, mixing and matching colors and styles. This year’s beads will include ostrich bone (from Kenya), recycled painted glass (from Kenya and also from Ghana, fair-trade), as well as a mix of complementary fair-trade-standard glass and resin beads from around the world (Happy Mango Beads is my favorite source).
I can’t wait to see how the kids string together these raw materials into wonderful creations!
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