Shirts Are On The Way!!!!

SHIRTS ARE HERE!!!!

We are busy getting orders packaged and shipped.  Thanks again to all of you who supported our first fundraiser and helped to support some very special girls in Ethiopia.

We look forward to many more opportunities to serve girls in Ethiopia and around the world.  Please remember to share your stories and service projects with us.  We can't wait to share some of the awesome projects that girls and women in the U.S. are working on to help 'shine' their lights on girls/women around the world.  Together, our shining lights will help these girls/women SPARKLE!!!!

The Ripple Effect...Kelsey's AWESOME Birthday Party!!!

The following guest post was written by an amazing girl named Kelsey.  What an honor to share the story of how she and her friends decided to create some "ripples" throughout their community!

My mom saw the Marquis' blog post about Alyssa's 15th birthday party and thought it was a great idea for me to do for my 16th birthday that was coming up. So, when my birthday time came around, I invited 5 of my good friends to come and do random acts of kindness, in honor of my 16th birthday.

When the day came, my friends came over in early afternoon. We then brainstormed a list of 16 acts of kindness on our chalkboard wall in the basement. We prayed before we left that God would lead us to the people that He wanted us to help and the people who needed some encouragement in their lives.

Then, we set off to do our work. All 6 of us girls went to elementary school together, so for our first "act", we made homemade cards and brought them to two of our favorite elementary school teachers to let them know how much we appreciate them and to thank them for all that they did for us. This is a picture of the 6 of us with one of the teachers we went to visit. She was in tears when she read our card and us girls were all smiles! It was really neat to see how much she was touched. She sent me a card later that month saying that she shared that experience with her 1st graders and that the teachers at our elementary school are going to incorporate doing random acts of kindness for their holiday staff party. It was encouraging to see that what we did for her was already having an effect on even more people.

Next, we went to the movie theater and gave movie tickets and candy to a family of 4 that was walking into the theater. They were in disbelief at first, but then they were really thankful and tried to explain to their kids what we were doing.

Afterwards, we made a quick stop at the laundromat and taped quarters on the washers and dryers.

After that, we went to Caribou. At Caribou, we went into the bathroom with sticky notes and markers where we wrote inspirational notes saying things like, "You are beautiful!" and " You are loved!" We then left, hoping someone would see our notes before a worker took them down. But then we realized that it didn't matter if a worker took them down because maybe they were the one who needed to see it the most. We also left 3 Caribou gift cards with the cashier to give to the next 3 customers that came in.

Next, we went to Target to get supplies for our next act of kindness. There we bought a bouquet of flowers, supplies to make a care package for a new mom at the hospital, and supplies to make a fun basket for the kids in the waiting room. We also gave out a Target gift cards to a family with a new baby and a mom with her son as they were walking into Target. The mom told us that we were an answered prayer. It was so cool! Then, we went to the hospital. When we got there and walked up to the front door, we saw a little girl sitting outside and she was crying. So we decided to give her one of the flowers from our bouquet.  One of my friends went up and gave her the flowers because we thought she'd be too overwhelmed by all 6 of us. She was shy, but she smiled from ear to ear and said thank you. We knew she appreciated it.

We went inside and went first to the waiting room. We gave our basket full of books and coloring books to some of the nurses at the front desk. We explained to them what we were out doing and that we were hoping they could keep it in there waiting room for kids to use when they have to come to the hospital.

For our next stop, we went to the maternity floor. We talked to the nurses at the front desk and asked them to give our basket of new baby clothes and supplies to the new mother who they thought needed it the most. The nurses were super excited and started conferring right away who they were going to give it to.

The next act of kindness we did was definitely our favorite out of all of them. The grandma of one of my friends who was with, had been at that hospital about a month before. So, we decided that we were going to give the bouquet of flowers to whoever was in that room at the time. We went up to the first nurse we saw on the floor she had been on and asked her if she could give the bouquet of flowers to the patient in that room. She smiled, and said we could go in and do it ourselves. We were all super nervous, because we had no idea what kind of a person we would find in that room. We ended up finding a sweet old lady named Vivian. We told her what we were doing and that we wanted to give her the bouquet of flowers. She smiled and teared up, saying that the flowers were her favorite colors. She was so grateful and it brought her so much joy to see young high school girls out doing what we were doing. Seeing her reaction and tears, brought all of us to tears. It was a moment we won't ever forget.

After the hospital, we did 3 more acts of kindness. We handed out rice krispie treats to kids and families that were at a park, where we met a paraplegic man who was so joyful and excited to see us out giving. Then, we did the Drive Thru difference at McDonalds. It was fun to watch the man in the car behind us when the worker told him that his meal had been paid for. He smiled and waved at us to show his thanks. We also gave candy to the kid working the drive thru. He was so excited then to help us out! For the last thing we did, we went to Minneapolis and handed out fruit to homeless people we saw on the streets. It was a real eye opener to how much we should appreciate everything we have in our life. It also made us realize even more that because God has blessed us with so much, we need to bless others with what we have because that is what life is all about.

All in all, doing the random acts of kindness for my birthday was a life changing experience not only for me, but also for my friends and everyone who we helped. It is something I would recommend to anyone because it is so rewarding to see how you can make an impact on the live of other people. We believe 100% that God led us to help these people. The Wednesday after we did this, we shared about our experiences with our youth group and how we saw God helping us through all of it. One of the girls in our youth group decided that she was going to do the same thing for her birthday that was in a couple weeks too. It was amazing to see the "ripple effect" on what we did for my birthday. It was an experience I will never forget!

Thank you so much!!!!

Great news!!!!  Thanks to the support of many of you, there will be some very special girls in Ethiopia who will be sponsored through Eyes That See.   We are thrilled to announce that our first batch of Sparkle Shirts have been ordered, are being printed, and will be shipped very soon!  You can expect to have your shirts by the second week in December. 

More details will follow about the sweet girls you have helped to support.  We can't wait to share their sweet faces with you!!!!

Many thanks for you support,

Deena and Alyssa

Last Day To Order Your "Sparkle" Shirt!

It's not too late!  You can still order your awesome "Sparkle" 

t-shirts until the end of the day today.  I am submitting our order tomorrow, so please don't delay.  I want each and every one of you that is interested, to have the opportunity to support a beautiful girl in Ethiopia.  Remember...the shirts make great gifts and you will receive a photo of the girl that you are helping to support.  

Shirt orders are closed at this time...please check back this spring when we launch a new style/ shirt design!  Thanks so much!!!!

One More Week To Order Sparkle Tees...

Sparkle Project tees will be on sale until Wednesday, November 14th.  PLEASE make sure to order as soon as possible, because there are so many beautiful, smart, loving girls in Ethiopia waiting to be sponsored!  Remember, every shirt you purchase helps to sponsor a girl in Ethiopia for an entire month.

The shirts make AWESOME gifts, so start your holiday shopping now.  It is so awesome to give gifts with a purpose, and each shirt will come with a photo of the girl you are helping to support...now that is a gift!

You can find all the details HERE.

Thanks so much for your support!!!

Remember, six shopping days left for this first phase of our project!!!

Random Acts of Kindness- A Great Way To Shine

One of the goals of The Sparkle Project, is to showcase ideas that others can use to "shine."

Please leave us comments with information about projects that you are involved in or service opportunities that you support.  We want to spread the word and give girls/women here in our own communities ideas to use that can help girls/women all over the world.

One of the projects that helped inspire Alyssa and I to start The Sparkle Project, was her Random Acts of Kindness party...

When it came time to celebrate Alyssa's 15th birthday, I was thrilled that she decided to make a difference in our community in honor of her special day.  She invited four friends to spend a night doing 15 Random Acts of Kindness.  All I can say is, this was an amazing experience.  We had so much fun and I really believe these girls will remember this night for a long time.  More importantly, they will continue to bless others with random acts of kindness for years to come.

The girls gathered at our house, brainstormed all sorts of ideas of kind things they could do for others, and we headed out the door to get started.  

1.  The girls headed to a local fountain in the center of our little downtown area.  They wrote "Make A Wish" with sidewalk chalk and scattered a hundred pennies next to the fountain.  It was so darn sweet!  Later that night, we drove by the fountain and saw a family with two little kids picking up pennies next to the fountain!  It was so neat!  The girls also each made a wish.  I have no doubt that Alyssa and her friends' wishes will come true some day, because they are an amazing group of girls! 

2.  Handing our Popsicles at an inner-city park

The night of Alyssa's birthday, it was close to 100 degrees outside.  The girls thought it would be fun to give Popsicles to people at a park.  I was excited to drive the girls to a park that was new to them.  The community that we live in is not very diverse.  The girls had not really ever been to the park or area of town that we visited.  This turned out to be an awesome multi-cultural experience for them.  For a change, the girls were the minorities.  It was great.  They jumped right out of the van and headed to the park armed with their treats.  They approached a large family that was hanging out at the park enjoying some time together.  I watched from the van, and was excited to see the family take the Popsicles from them.  The girls also found a ton of little kids at the park to share with.  It seemed a little bit wrong to be offering treats to kids at a park, but these are kids that were tiny, unsupervised, and were so excited to get a treat!  I decided to get out of the van to make sure nobody was upset that the girls were giving goodies to little kids they didn't know.  No worries.  It just felt like a really kind thing to do.  The weather was so hot and the kids were so happy!

The fun continued when the group of teenagers at the park also began to eye up the goodies.  The girls decided that everyone should have a treat, so they walked right up to the group of teenage boys at the park and offered them some.  Fun times.  I don't think this boy has ever had a very blond, Swedish girl offer him a Popsicle at a park.  

The girls agreed that Random Act of Kindness number 2 was probably their favorite of the night!

3.  Delivered card games (Uno, Disney Princess) to the waiting room on the children's floor of a hospital.

(also offered the valet drivers candy bars from our local chocolate store)

4.  Taped quarters and notes to washing machines and dryers at a laundry mat.  

The girls loved this one too.  They also met a few interesting new "friends" who were spending their Friday night doing laundry. ;)

5.  Buried rolls of nickles at a park in an at-risk neighborhood.  Taped to the roll of quarters was a note that said something about random acts of kindness and how they could pay it forward, etc.

6.  Brought pizzas to our local fire station.  The firefighters were so nice!!!!  They invited the girls in to see the firehouse.  This was also one of the girls' favorites.

7.  Taped inspirational notes to the mirror at Starbucks ("you are beautiful" "you are kind", etc.)

8.  Gave out four movie passes attached to movie sized candy right before customers entered the movie theatre.  This one really confused people.  One couple was really thankful, one was skeptical.  The girls laughed about that.  Funny how people are caught off guard when someone does something really nice for them.

9.  Gave someone a gift card to Starbucks.

10.  Taped quarters and notes to toy/candy vending machines inside of the entrance to a store

11.  Wrote inspirational notes and hid them in books at Barnes & Noble.

12.  Gave a gift card to Barnes & Noble to a little boy who was in the store.  The girls explained that they were doing random acts of kindness and that they wanted him to buy a book.  This was awesome, because he was with his family and they really thought it was cool.  My hope is that some of the people the girls met will continue to pay it forward and bless others.  I suspect this boy and his family will.

13.  Approached a man and his daughter who were in the check-out line at Walmart and gave him a gift card to the store.  The girls said that his reaction was priceless.  They said he was giddy with excitement and was almost brought to tears!  So sweet!

14.  Paid for the person behind us in line at McDonald's.

It was fun to sneak in the drive through and go to the window without an order.  When I drove up, the worker tried to hand me her order, but when I then handed him a Seroogy's candy bar and told him that it was for him and we wanted to pay for the lady behind us, he smiled, laughed, and said "you guys are awesome!"  The girls had fun watching the reaction of the person behind us as we drove away.  

15.  Chose random people out of the phone book and mailed them a card with kind words and a two dollar bill inside.  This was fun because the girls wrote such sweet words.  When we googled the street name of one of the people to find out her zip code, it turned out that she was a resident in a nursing home...made the act of kindness even better!

  And to end the night, the girls rolled up a two dollar bill and encouraging note and attached it to a helium balloon.

The girls ended the night by letting the balloon go and watching it fly away in the starry sky.  

It was a great way to end the night!

What an amazing night. 

What an amazing group of girls. 

Please consider this idea, because in addition to spreading joy to others, these five ladies learned how easy it is to bless others.  They also learned how awesome it feels to do so.

(*Thank you to Jessica for sharing the Random Acts of Kindness printables.  You can find them here. )

Shop Sparkle = Sponsor A Girl

We are excited to be selling these awesome shirts to help sponsor girls in Ethiopia.  If you haven't had a chance to visit Eyes That See and learn about the awesome programs they are running...check it out. 

Remember, the shirts are for sale for a limited time.  We will take orders until mid-November.  We want to make sure we are able to get all shirts/key chains/ photos of girls that you are sponsoring mailed out for the holidays!

Thanks again for your support!

You read all of the details about The Sparkle Project t-shirt sales HERE.

Shine on!!!

A Very Cool Way To Shine...And Look Fashionable In The Process!

One of the main goals of The Sparkle Project is to do what we can to support girls and women in Ethiopia.  We have some exciting news... We have partnered with a wonderful organization called  Eyes That See to sponsor girls in Ethiopia. We were fortunate enough to visit the site of ETS while we were in Ethiopia.  We have also met the founders of ETS in person, and know first-hand about the incredible work they are doing in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.   Eyes That See provides school tuition, uniforms, healthy meals, and emotional support for the children they serve.   It costs $25 a month to sponsor a girl in Ethiopia.

Here is how you can make a positive change:  by purchasing a $25 Sparkle shirt, you can sponsor a child for a month!!!!  It's like spending $25 to sponsor a child (a great gift in itself), and getting a cool t-shirt and key chain along with your donation!

 Every time you purchase a shirt from The Sparkle Project, you receive your shirt, a Sparkle Project key chain (to remind you to shine each and every day), and a card containing a photo of the girl you are helping to sponsor.  We are so excited to offer you an opportunity to see the girl whose life YOU are supporting.  Please take time to think of and pray for the girl you are helping.  Each (adorably wrapped) gift package that you purchase will help support a girl in Ethiopia for a full month! Please consider making a difference in the life of a child...

With each shirt purchased, you receive:

Your shirt

A Sparkle key chain

A card with the photo of the girl you are helping to sponsor for an entire month!

Free shipping

We are doing a pre-sale for shirts.  We do have a limited stock of shirts right now, but the pre-order shirts will ship to you by the end of November/beginning of December.

Everything will be shipped in beautiful packaging -explaining that "The purchase of this shirt supported a girl in Ethiopia for an entire month" - great for gift giving!!!! 

ORDERS ARE CLOSED AT THIS TIME
THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVE HELPED TO SPONSOR GIRLS IN ETHIOPIA THROUGH YOUR PRUCHASES!!!

These super soft shirts are a very fashionable fit.  They are a little more of a boxy style.  60% Poly, 40% Cotton, 3.8 oz. blended jersey fabric. The bottom hem is curved a bit.  We seriously LOVE these shirts - super comfy and stylish!!!  
The black shirt is printed with SILVER ink...

Our navy shirt is so cool!  It was designed by an amazing guy/artist/architect who is currently in school at Virginia Tech.  He is also the uncle of an adorable little guy from Ethiopia- he has a huge heart for Ethiopia and was kind enough to surprise us by donating his amazing design services to help The Sparkle Project!  Thank you so much for all of your hard work Chase!

The navy design is a traditional ladies fit shirt (they fit true to size).  These shirts are also very comfy - here are the technical details:  4.5 oz 100% ring-spun cotton 30/1's fine knit jersey, fashion fit for feminine silhouette, side seamed, feminine ribbed crew taped neck, double needle sleeves and bottom hem

The navy shirt above is a mock up of the color combination we have decided on.   "Let your light shine" is displayed along the center of this adorable shirt (Take a look at the purple version to see the design clearly.  It is a great design!!  Thanks Chase!).  

Each purchase comes with a Sparkle key chain! 

Our Inspiration For The Sparkle Project

About two years ago, our family was blessed through adoption.  Our little girl, Grace, came home from Ethiopia.  She is an amazing girl.  What we didn't know until then, was how amazing her birth country was.  We fell in love with Ethiopia.  Our hearts were also touched by the overwhelming needs in Ethiopia.  Many women and girls in places like Ethiopia have a very challenging lives.  We saw first hand how many children (girls especially) do not have the opportunity to go to school.  Many do not even have enough food to eat.

We believe that girls hold the key to the future of Ethiopia and many third world countries.  Helping one girl, helps many in the long run.  Our desire is to help sponsor as many young girls in Ethiopia as we can.  We have some exciting ways that you can partner with The Sparkle Project to do just that!

Please take a minute to watch the following video.  This video does an EXCELLENT job of explaining what we believe...

We hope you consider following our blog and taking the time to reflect on how YOU can make a difference.  You can shine your light here in the U.S., as well as across the world.  We look forward to using our blog as a clearing house for community service project ideas, fundraisers that support those in need, as well as to highlight the awesome stories of others that are shining their lights and, in turn, making others sparkle all over the world!

(please consider subscribing to The Sparkle Project blog to learn about how you can "shine" and to share your great community service ideas with us)