Passports With Purpose Round Four

 

It's mind boggling that it's been three years since the launch of Passports With Purpose and the first time that I, in collaboration with Kamoka Pearls, have donated a Tahitian Pearl (or more) to the cause. And what's amazing is that every year the wonderful folks who organize this fundraiser seem to come up with even more vital causes and raise significantly more money.

This year to me is the best yet: clean water. There's not a more basic need than that. And the location, Haiti, is where this should happen. With donations towards the unusually special array of blogger prizes (tours, gift vouchers for flights and hotels and even a ukulele) PWP hopes to raise $100,000 this year and proceeds will go to Water.org to dig wells for clean water in Haiti.

I have never been to Haiti (I lived in Tahiti for 15 years and I cannot count the times that people have mixed the two up and asked me about the earthquake) but I'm fortunate to have a colleague Paul Clammer (@paulclammer you should all follow him) who wrote the Haiti guidebook for Lonely Planet and has more recently written a very comprehensive Haiti guide with Bradt publishing. Through Paul's tweets and Facebook I've followed photos, stories and snippets that have made it clear how desperate things are over there.

Throughout my travels I've met heaps of aid workers and villagers who have things to say about aid workers and I've never heard more glowing reports than of a Peace Corps volunteer in Vanua Levu, Fiji who almost single-handedly brought clean water to a remote corner of the island. The villagers told me that within the first year they noticeably saw their children become, bigger, healthier and more thriving. I can't imagine how it would be to raise a family while constantly getting parasites or worse, and hoping that whatever came along wouldn't be strong enough to kill. Eradicating that fear and seeing the whole community thrive has got to be the biggest game changer there is.

So there it is. In hopes of helping this year's drive reach it's goals (I have no doubt it will so let's go for way past those goals) my husband Josh at Kamoka Pearls and I have donated a truly spectacular pearl. It's dark and bright with a liquid-y, deep orient that makes you want to touch it, hold it and wear it against your skin. It's mostly green with hues of purple and pink. We decided to mount this pearl with a very simple loop to show off how gorgeous it is, in no need of extra fanfare. If this were in our online shop we'd price it at $430. It's a gem.

So go over to Passports With Purpose and donate! We always donate too and last year we won a fabulous wine tour of the Walla Walla area of Washington State. Not bad for a donation that felt good anyway!

Passports With Purpose Round Three: Pearls for Libraries in Zambia

The day before yesterday Passports With Purpose (PWP) launched its third fundraiser, this year to build two libraries in Zambia. I was on a boat, a bus and then a plane on the day of the launch through last night (making my way from a remote isle in Fiji back home to Portland), so please excuse my tardiness, it has nothing to do with lack of enthusiasm for this annual project!

I do admit however that when I first heard that PWP was going to build libraries this year I was a bit disappointed. Yes I love books and learning and want the world to have access to this magical realm but aren't there other things that are more important like food, shelter and freedom from violence? As usual, the universe came and answered me. About four days ago, whilst on that small island in Fiji, I met an English woman who told me this story:

Angela was traveling through East Africa by bus. At a random dusty stop she heard a little boy very loudly and confidently proclaiming: "Public service announcement! Bananas contain potassium and are very good for your health! I have bananas for sale, get them here."

She found this adorable but she didn't like bananas. The little boy stopped at her bus window and asked her where she was from.

"England," she said.

"What part?"

She told him the town which was somewhere near South London.

The little boy then asked her what she thought of her local football team who he had seen play in a match on TV over the weekend - he knew the score. They chatted a little about football including the boy's favorite underdog team that happen to be the home team of another English couple sitting at the front of the bus.

"Here," said the boy after a few minutes. "Have a banana."

It was free gift but Angela didn't want a banana or get a freebee from this boy who surely needed the money so she refused.

Another boy nearby said innocently, "You don't want to be his friend?"

So Angela took the banana. With a quick thought, she decided to give the boys a magazine from the bus. The two boys immediately lit up, set down their bananas and poured over the magazine under a tree.

"All they wanted to do was read," Angela told me on that Fijian island. "I wished I could have given them a library's worth of books."

A light went off in my head; this is exactly what I was about to help do with PWP, except we're giving Zambian children two libraries worth of books. No it's not saving lives but it's certainly enhancing them and who's to say what's more important.

Now about my prize.

The "Mana Necklace" is Kamoka Pearls' signature adventure and travel jewelry and something I've worn on the road for years. Everything is sustainable from the pearl, grown with care in Ahe Atoll's lagoon in the Tuamotu Archipelago, to the kangaroo leather which is taken to quell over population in native stocks (it's also some of the strongest leather in the world).

The prize is a necklace on leather with a 10mm semi-round silver pink grade B pearl (great luster and two very small, nearly imperceptible blemishes) and an anklet with a 9.5mm medium tone grey-green-gold baroque grade B pearl (again very good luster with only a minor, scarcely visible scratch). You can see the details of the necklace line at http://buy.kamokapearls.com/collections/kangaroo-leather-line/products/mana-necklace but the anklet is a new product that isn't online yet - so this is a special pre-launch gift! The necklace is normally priced at $130 and the anklet is expected to be priced around $100 making the set worth around $230.

And if you're new here I might add that Kamoka Pearl is my family's farm run by my charming husband.

So please head over to the PWP website, bid on my prize and help build those libraries in Zambia!!!

A Pearl For Passports With Purpose Round 2

I can't believe it's been a year already but here it is, November again and for the second year Passports With Purpose is organizing their creative and inspired drive to raise money for a cause; last year they built a school in Cambodia and this year the goal is to build an entire village in India, brick by brick. Here's how it works: bloggers like me procure a prize, blog about it and spread the word. We hope our readers will go to the Passports With Purpose prize page and make a donation. Each $10 you donate will put you in the running for a prize of your choice and there are some great ones from plane tickets to travel gear and stays in resorts. Each $10 you donate also goes directly to building the village in India so it's a winning formula all around.

Once again my contribution is a Tahitian pearl, generously donated by Kamoka Pearls, where I worked for years and it's still run by my family. Last year I entered a silver toned round so this year I'm upping the ante as far as my own tastes are concerned and am offering this gorgeous A-grade teardrop peacock green 10.5mm gem in the photo. This pearl comes from my private collection of some of the most beautiful pearls the farm has ever produced. Retail value is probably around $250 but really it's worth more than that - it's rare to find a pearl this pretty on the market anywhere. It would make a stunning pendant.

Note: the black in the middle of the pearl is just a reflection of the photographer, not a blemish.

The Winning Pearl

Voila. My husband was finally able to get a photo of the 10mm round "A" grade natural color Tahitian pearl worth $200 that Kamoka Pearls is giving away for Passports With Purpose. Proceeds go to build that now near-famous school in Cambodia plus the increasingly plentiful overflow funds will go to other good causes in the area. So here is the pearl in all it's glory. To me it says "pendant" but I'm sure it would be great as a ring too.

Amazing! One Week of Donations Brings in Enough Money to Build a Cambodian School

I'm really, really impressed. In one week Passports With Purpose has made over $13,000 from $10 bids on donated prizes including cameras, stays at top hotels and a beautiful Tahitian pearl from yours truly. This is way more interest than I think anyone had expected and is great news to start the week. Bidding is still open till December 21st and there's still a chance that new prizes will be added so please click over and help out!

Passports With Purpose: Help Build a School in Cambodia

Sometimes the universe hurdles us in a certain direction. One week ago I returned from an amazing but too short trip to Cambodia at the tail end of a Lonely Planet research gig through Thailand. I mostly did the tourist stuff on my short vacation - visited Angkor Wat and made a brief stop in Phnom Penh - but I was incredibly touched by unencumbered kindness of the people. Somehow the history of the country seems to resonate through them yet they're coming out of the dark ages and that fills the air with an inspiring positivity. It's intense, there's no other way to describe it. Cambodia is a much poorer country than Thailand and stray children, needy people and landmine victims are omni-present. In Phnom Penh I was lucky enough to spend an evening with a group of expats - every one of them involved in some sort of NGO or aid program. The experience made me want to pack up my life in Tahiti and do something more useful with my life. I was dreaming about how I could make it back to Cambodia the second I was on the plane - rarely has such a short visit charmed and haunted me so much.

Today I came across an opportunity not to go back to Cambodia but to at least give something back. The annual Passports With Purpose fundraiser is supporting American Assistance for Cambodia (AAfC) this year with a goal to raise $13,000 to build a rural school. The AAfC has already built 400 schools throughout the country as well as other actions aimed at improving opportunities for the youth and rural poor in Cambodia.

This is how you can help: travel bloggers like me offer a prize and blog about the fundraiser to encourage people to bid on the many available prizes from myself and other bloggers. My prize is an A-grade round Tahitian pearl from Kamoka Pearl Farm worth $200 mailed to your doorstep anywhere in the world. By making a $10 donation you can bid on the pearl as well as all sorts of other great stuff from brand name travel packs and camcorders to stays at hotels in major American cities. One hundred percent of the donations go to the AAfC. You can bid from today to December 21st 2009.

So please, click over to the Passports With Purpose website and enter to win! There is really no way to loose on this.

I'll be posting a picture of the pearl as soon as I can - hopefully within the next week. In the meantime you can check out where it comes from at www.kamokapearls.com.