Women 2 Women

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Making the Water Filters

Enjoy this video that shows the making of the water filters we provide to the families in Guatemala.   (They are made in Guatemala by Guatemalans).  It's only 2 1/2 minutes:

Making the Water Filters


 

 2014 Activities:

FUTURE DATES to SAVE:

 

August 23rd  or 30th           5 K Run   Scripps Ranch

Thursday, Sept 25th          GENERAL WOMEN-2-WOMEN Meeting    10-12 a.m.

Saturday, Oct 18th            Homemade for the Holidays Boutique

Saturday, Dec 13th            Boutique Follow-up for special orders

 

 

 

 

June:  A Look Back at the "Flow" Fashion Show

Enjoy the video!


APRIL:

                                            

                        Our fearless leader, Randie Reinhart, proud mama of Women-2-Women

Enjoy the sample photos in the photo strip >

See MORE Photos of Show! at:   

      http://www.pinterest.com/jerilynn10/fashion-show/

Saturday, 26th                    “FLOW”  FASHION SHOW

                                             WHERE:  Rancho Santa Fe Community Center, 5970 La Sendita  RSF

                                             WHEN:    5:30-8:30 p.m.  

                                             WHAT:     Fashion Show directed by Gia Nina Badarocco with models featured in                                                                           (March) Harper’s Bazaar magazine, Designer Handbags from

                                                               Fashionphile,  Silent Auction and lavish hors d’oeuvres.

                                                               Trevor Davis from “The Voice” will provide entertainment.

                                             BUY Tickets now as VIP Tickets are going fast:  flowfashionshow.myevent.com

 

MARCH CALENDAR:

 

Thursday, 27th                   WOMEN-2-WOMEN General Meeting – 1st Anniversary Celebration

 

WHERE:  Home of Carla Smith,  4820 Rancho Verde Trail (Turn South off San Dieguito Rd. onto Caminito Pacifica Trail.  Left on Rancho Verde Trail)

 

                                             WHEN:   10-12 a.m.

                                             WHAT:   Walk Down Memory Lane complete with videos/photos

                                                             1 Year Group  Photo to be taken in Carla’s Beautiful Backyard

                                              Updates on Fashion Show “Flow” and October Boutique                           

                                                             Musical Entertainment, Friendship, Food, and Fun

 

Saturday, 29th                    TEEN-2-TEEN  Mother-Daughter Tea

                                             WHERE:  Home of Elizabeth Ingersoll, 15355 Las Planideras   RSF

                                             WHEN:   1-3 p.m.

                                             WHAT:    Evite to follow to sign up for Tea Sandwiches

 

 

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March 2014  Rancho Santa Fe Review Article:

Maya Relief Foundation to hold fashion show and

silent auction benefit in Rancho Santa Fe

Funds raised at the April 26 event in Rancho Santa Fe will help children in Guatemala. Courtesy photo

By Stacey Phillips

Imagine making a difference in a family’s life in just an hour. That’s all the time it takes for the Maya Relief Foundation to improve the quality of lives for Maya families in Guatemala by providing a fuel-efficient stove and water filter. Randie Reinhart, who started the foundation with her husband Leon on July 4, 2002, said they hope to provide stoves to more than 100,000 families within the next five years.

“There are seven-and-a-half-million Maya families out there out of a population of 15 million,” she said. “We need to touch as many of these families as we can.”

Based in Rancho Santa Fe, the Maya Relief Foundation is holding a fashion show and silent auction to raise money to purchase the stoves and water filters that will benefit indigenous families in the highlands of rural Alta Verapaz, Guatemala.  The show will be held April 26 at the Rancho Santa Fe Community Center starting at 5:30 p.m.

Standing room tickets are $35 and cover the cost of one water filter; general seating is $70 and will pay for two water filters; and VIP front row seating is $110 and will cover the cost of a fuel-efficient stove.

The April 26 fashion show will feature top models and designs. Photo/ML Fashion Photography

“One hundred percent of the ticket sales is going directly to help these people,” said Jenny Donaldson, a volunteer from the Maya Relief Foundation who is coordinating the fashion show called FLOW. Professionally directed by Gia Nina Bodarocco, the show features Harper’s Bazaar models presenting apparel from local boutiques. Hor d’oeuvres will be served prior to the fashion show beginning. There will be a silent auction and local accessories vendors with items to purchase, all contributing to the foundation. San Diego singer/songwriter Trevor Davis, who has released seven albums and was a recent contestant on the television show “The Voice,” will perform.

The Maya Relief Foundation was established as the Reinhart Family Foundation 12 years ago with the intent of serving the humanitarian needs of the poor in Latin America. Soon after, the Reinharts decided to focus on ways to assist the Maya with their health and well-being as well as help them become self-sustainable.  After living abroad in mostly developing countries for 30 years, the family relocated to San Diego in 1996. They had lived in Iran, Panama, Ecuador, Puerto Rico, Bahrain, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico.

Reinhart said she always felt a special connection with the people in these countries and wanted to do something to help them. “Since day one we tried to come up with good solutions to the problems of the Maya indigenous people,” she said. “We could see what was the most beneficial thing for the most needy people.” The Reinharts and their son Rob work full-time for the foundation and other family members assist when they can.

Alex Ingersoll from the Maya Relief Foundation said that Maya women’s lives revolve around cooking and they usually stand in front of huge fires built on a wooden pallet called a polleton inside their homes.  The families breathe in toxic fumes from the fires, which cause eye irritations and respiratory problems. In order to address this, the foundation replaces the Maya’s open cooking fires with a fuel-efficient EkoStove.

“It radically changes these people’s lives,” said Ingersoll.

The cleaner burning stove emits little smoke and allows the women to cook in substantially less time. In addition to having cleaner air, Reinhart said their respiratory illnesses decline dramatically due to the decreased amount of smoke.  The stove also has a flue that carries any excess smoke or gases out of the house.

Because the stove uses 70 percent less firewood, the women do not have to spend as much time looking for wood but instead have time to make handicrafts they can sell in the marketplace, which is a source of income for them.

“The women like to have beauty around them and when you have a dirt floor you have to create beauty in a different way. They do that in their clothing and what they weave,” said Reinhart.

A portable Ektofiltro water filter is also given to the families by the foundation, which provides clean water. The families no longer have to collect wood to boil their water and intestinal illnesses due to poor water quality are substantially decreased.

Reinhart said, “It’s very moving, you feel a loving feeling that you have given a little kid a cold glass of water.”

In addition to the stove and water filter, both made in Guatemala, the foundation works with families in other ways to help improve their lives. They assist them with planting a garden so they learn to vary their diet. The garden provides them with cash crops the families can sell or barter with. The foundation also supplies the women with multi-nutritional vitamins donated by the Kirk Humanitarian Foundation.

Finally, the Maya Relief Foundation pays a local social worker from the village to help families maintain the stove and water filter for a year, as well as teaching them basic health lessons.

A year ago Reinhart formed a group in San Diego called Women 2 Women to help support the needs of the foundation. “It’s powerful for our ladies here to see the ladies there,” said Reinhart. “They really are kindred spirits.” There is a Teen 2 Teen component of this group that plans fundraisers like lip-syncing contests and a mother-daughter tea.

“There are great needs around the world and we, with an abundance, sharing just a modest amount can make such a difference in a family’s life in the Third World,” said Reinhart.

Ticket to FLOW can be purchased on-line http://www.flowfashionshowmyevents.com or at the event. More information about the Maya Relief Foundation is available on its web site: http://www.mayarelief.com.

2013 Activities:

 Women 2 Women Mayan Relief Fundraiser

100% of proceeds to improve the health of

Guatemalan families

through basic improvements:

water filters and fuel efficient stoves

 

 July 22nd

7:00 p.m. and 9:10 p.m.

@ Movie Max Theatres

2601 El Camino Real, Carlsbad, CA

Seats are limited.  RESERVE TODAY

at

MovieMax.com/Maya

 

Follow Ephraim Hanks, as his adventures lead him to join the

LDS Church and ultimately assist the Martin handcart Company,

one of the most heroic rescues in American history.

 

Donations are $10 for adults, $5 for 17 years and younger

 

For more information call:  (858) 304-0412

Email:  Ephraimsrescue@gmail.com

 

Facebook:  Ephraim's Rescue Charity Event

 

Thanks to Robert Sheffield for donating Movie Mas Theatres for this event.

 

CALENDAR:

2013:

 

May 30             General Meeting             10:00 a.m.         Sherry Weeks Host

June 4              Fundraising Dinner         7 - 9 p.m.           Randie Reinhart Host

                           (Guest speaker, Philip Wilson of Ecofilters)    $100 plate

                            Members/spouses/friends

July/Aug          No General W2W Meetings

                             New Member Brunches Continue ( to explain W2W)

Sept  8-14         W2W trip to Guatemala

Sept 19              W2W General Meeting    10:00 a.m.     Amy Jones Host

Sept 28             W2W Family Fun Run (5K) 8:00-12:00  Poway Nature Trail

Nov 21               W2W General Meeting    10:00 a.m.    Jeri Johnson Host

 

We Plant and They Grow!

The theme of our May General Meeting is "We Plant and They Grow"

We are going to talk about the miracle of the seed and how it multiplies itself over and over and gives so much more than what we see as it is planted.

That is what we hope to accomplish as Women 2 Women.  We will plant a seed in Guatemala (the water filters,  Eco stove, and multi-vitamins) and then see the fruits as the Guatemalan women grow in self sufficiency, better health and hope.

Hope was lacking in their lives of survival and the daily drudgery of finding wood, cooking in a smoke filled home and watching their children and themselves suffer.  Each day was a quest for enough food to get through that day 

With the seeds we are planting, those days are over for them and they can grow and build witlhout limitation - clean home, more food, CLEAN WATER, better health, micro businesses, productive daylight hours to do more, etc. All the time the country is blessed with less deforestation.

Our little seeds will change the lives of families forever.  So we give seeds with great joy and know that they will make a huge difference in the lies of God's children in Guatemala.

Prenatal Vitamins

this is a young mother (VERY young as you can see) who benefited by our pre natal vitamin program.  Here is a letter she wrote (with the translation in Spanish following)

 

 

 

 

April News:

We were able to install 500 Eco stoves and water filters this month!  (our goal for the year was 1,000 - so we are already half way there. Let's try to double or TRIPLE our goal!!!)

Our Women 2 Women organization is growing by leaps and bounds.  We have almost filled all the offices for our board.  Just a few spots remaining.

Our general meetings will be held every other month in a member's home.

Shoe Boat

When the women of Poway heard about our new Women-2-Women organization (An off shoot of the Maya Relief Foundation)  they wanted to do something for the women and children of Guatemala. 

they collected shoes!  They asked the women from their church to donate shoes and they put a boat in the lobby to collect them.

Here is a memo from our President reporting on the even:

April 2, 2013

Dear W2W Women,

    Now that both our first formal meeting and Easter are over, I just want to thank you for your support and willingness to bless the lives of women and their families in Guatemala.  We were so gratified by the Poway Stake of the LDS Church that collected for us over 450 pairs of shoes for women and children in the Altaverapaz area of Guatemala.  They will be so surprised and happy to receive such fine quality shoes--slightly used and some brand new.

(photo to follow)

What's Happening...

The Maya Relief Foundation has been operating for over ten years helping the people in Guatemala.  They asked us to form an affiliated group to take over the filtered water and the Eco-stoves so they could focus on other pressing issues. 

The first meeting of the founding members of Women 2 Women met on February 28, 2013. Thirty  women showed up and embraced the goals of this new organization. We are a committed group who will follow the same guidelines as the Maya Relief Foundation.  100% of donations received goes into manufacturing and distributing these items to villages in Guatemala.  None of the members receive a salary and all members pay their own transportation if they choose to go to Guatemala.

We want to spread the word to our friends and families and hope to have 100 members by the end of the year.

Bunk Bed Project:

Placeholder Image

The Maya Relief Foundation (our parent organization)  has done some really great things for the Guatemalan people. 

When the Mudslide wiped out the homes of 15,000 people, the Red Cross came in and built temporary housing BUT the people were sleeping on the ground where rats, bugs, and mud made the conditions unbearable.

The Maya Relief Foundation made bunk beds for the people to get them off the ground.  When the people moved out of the temporary housing, they were able to take their bunk beds with them!