I am often asked by our travelers for advice on what to take as donations or gifts to their destinations. It’s a hard question for me to answer as I have been in many situations where distributing things like pencils, flashlights and balls has gone awry…the wrong people end up with the goods, there is mayhem, there are fights, tears and disappointment. A mess. That is why I am so delighted, and calmed, to discover Pack for a Purpose and its remarkably sensible and clear vision for giving to others.
Pack for a Purpose has solved a couple of potential problems to this kind of giving. The first thing it asks you to do is to select your destination (presumably, destinations are being added all the time). If your destination is listed, you will find under it another list of hotel partners, each of which has its own list of requested items. The brilliance of this targeting is that your gifts align with specified local needs. The organization then tells you how to pack the goods – keep in original boxes or take out, deflate soccer balls, etc. – and then, once in country, you can deliver your donation to the hotel property who will pass on your donation to the school or clinic or project requesting them.
This should become standard practice for all of us when we travel.
Since 2007, when fashion designer and philanthropist Donna Karan founded the Urban Zen Foundation, an inspiringly beautiful holiday market appears at 705 Greenwich Street in lower Manhattan. Each year, Karan creates a marketplace that combines humanitarianism with consumerism, promoting shopping with a purpose. The Foundation is dedicated to three initiatives: preservation of culture (past); bringing mind, body and spirit to healthcare (present); education (future.) The opening last night featured more than 40 artisans from countries as diverse as Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, India, South Africa and Mexico, artisans that exhibit at the International Folk Art Market in the Southwest each summer. The space is the perfect venue in which to display fabrics and objects, photographs and fashion in such a way that they - and you - feel instantly at home.
Of particular beauty were the feather light shrugs, coats and jackets of Farzana Sharshenbieva from Kyrgyzstan; the magnificently, finely tie dyed bandhani silk scarves of Gujarati Abduljabbar Khatri; the sensuous Zulu pots of Jabulile Nala whose mother is considered a national treasure. I adored the heavy, indigo dyed raw cotton jackets of Laotian Boukhong Signavong that greet you as you enter this magical space.
There is nothing more healing, nothing more inspiring, nothing more warming than to be in the presence of passionate artisans who draw beauty from their souls to share it with others. It was hard to leave Urban Zen last night, so hard, in fact, that I shall return tomorrow."
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