Yesterday, Jeremy Carroll, one of our friends from Print for Change, came to Sawtooth for an afternoon visit. Not only did we get to see some of the great work they’ve recently been doing, we also got to hear about Jeremy’s own personal experiences helping the people of Haiti.
Thanks to Kara for coordinating the visit and the donation of the soccer balls. And of course, thanks to Jeremy for taking the time to share his inspiring stories.
We got an awesome email this morning from our friends at Print for Change. We just had to share in hopes that many of you will consider participating in this important project.
This past March, 6 friends under the name of Le Sét traveled to Haiti to volunteer with the Healing Haiti Foundation and Print for Change with the intent to use our artistic talents to force people to take a new look at the reality of post-earthquake Haiti, with the goal of selling our work to support healinghaiti.org, and inspiring people to get involved in Healing Haiti now.
We delivered food and water, and even had the opportunity to share a fun day of art and play with Haitian Orphans. Our mission is far from over and we ask for a small amount of your time and talent.
In the mid-90’s, UN peacekeeping troops distributed treats to hungry Haitian kids, encouraging the children to shout: “Hey You! Give me chocolate!” as they did. Now, more than a decade later, the phrase has been passed down, and butchered in translation, with the “give me” being discarded altogether. The result is a generation of Haitian children who think “Hey You!” means “Give Me!” Today, in this time of extreme need, the cries of “Hey You! Chocolate!” “Hey You! Dollar!” and “Hey You! Shoes!” fill the streets of this ravaged country, forming the sad soundtrack to daily Haitian life. Now more than ever, the people of Haiti need our love and support. HEY YOU! HELP!
We’ve named and branded our Project and Mission HEY YOU! And we’d like to include your artistic interpretation of these words. Since Hey You! is many voices of an entire country and it’s youth, we want to see those voices individually interpreted. Your work will be included in the show as a poster and in a collective book of photos, journals, and art, which will be published in early fall. We ask that you submit your work by MARCH 11th as an Abobe Illustrator file or a Photoshop file at 300 dpi. Max size of work should be 5” x 5.”
For information and insight into our project please visit our website and join us on Facebook.
On January 12th, 2010 we had a meeting scheduled for a new company to come in and present. That company was Print for Change. Their mission: “Print for Change is a print management company on a mission to supply the very best in printing at competitive rates and donate 50% of profits to provide clean water, food, education, shelter and hope to children and families living in extreme poverty within Haiti. Print for Change collaborates with Healing Haiti.org and together help support over 1,500 children attending school by paying teacher salaries, providing student tuition, uniforms, shoes, backpacks and school supplies.” As you can imagine, we were all pretty inspired by the end of our meeting. The print work we do internally and for our clients could actually go a long way in helping others. It brought more meaning to our work whether it be a small or large print project, it didn’t matter. Later that day we would come to find out Haiti was hit by one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in modern times. It really hit those of us who had met Jeremy and Joey from Print for Change just hours earlier, pretty hard. Of course Sawtooth Group wanted to help in anyway possible. We collected all kinds of medical supplies, knowing Print for Change could get it right to those who really needed it. We packed up an entire car-load of supplies and dropped it off. On their next trip to Haiti, Print for Change was able to bring 450 lbs. of medical supplies down to help Mother Teresa’s Home in Part Au Prince and the eldercare in Titanyen.
Some facts about Haiti that you may not know:
- Only 30% of Haitians had access to clean water before the earthquake.
- 1 in 8 children die before the age of 5 from curable or treatable diseases
- 80% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day
- Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and 90 minutes from the US by air
- Over 50% of Haitians do not know how to read or write
- Life expectancy in Haiti is 52 years
We have made a decision to partner with Print for Change. That was the easy part. We were very impressed with Jeremy and Joey’s dedication to their organization as well as the expertise they bring with them. They are able to bring a creative sense to any project and, without hesitation, offer suggestions and alternate concepts. Plus they are as excited as we are to produce great work. The hard part becomes finding more partners that are willing to give back and not simply be satisfied simply being given to. While making a profit is certainly very important (we definitely understand that), giving back a little to the world that’s provided you the opportunity to make that profit in the first place feels like a small price to pay.
