From my inbox. Thanks, G., for letting me repost this here.
- Flip Flops by Kudomomo via Flickr
It all started a few years ago when an online friend in Hawai`i (who I have since met in person) was living in subsidized housing in a very poor part of Honolulu. Lynn is a formerly-homeless ex-drug addict, whose first husband died of ALS. She raised three children on her own while battling her own addictions and issues; they are all grown now and have done/still are serving in the military. She has worked for years to turn her own life around, is now remarried, has a job and has moved out of the housing project.
But while she was still in the projects, she realized that most of the keiki (the children) in the complex had nothing to wear on their feet – not even a cheap pair of the most common Island footwear, the rubber slipper. So she decided to do something about it, and on her own, decided to ask friends if they would contribute a few bucks to buy “slippahs” for the neighborhood kids for one Christmas.
No bureaucracy, no overhead, no promotional team – just Lynn and word-of-mouth. One friend set up a bank account to handle checks, another friend used a contact to get a slipper-maker to provide product below cost, and so on. That year, the housing project’s Christmas party featured new slippahs for every kid – the story made one of the Honolulu papers.
In the handful of years since, the buzz has grown, and Lynn tries to obtain slippahs and a few other basic goods for families on several of the Hawaiian Islands. Still no big bureaucracy – just Lynn’s Slippah Project, a truly grassroots idea that continues to grow and succeed.
If you want to contribute anything, there’s now a website at www.slippah.org.