THE STORY
Written by founders, Gregg and Caroline Marston
ORIGINAL PROJECT:
Part of the original vision around these bags was to provide work for unemployed Vietnamese people needing income. The material for these bags was used sail cloth from my 1965, 36-foot Alden Mistral sloop, which I inherited from my father. He had saved his old sails as he replaced them with new ones. I did the same, with a dream of making bags from them sometime in the future. A number of our bags were sewn from the boat’s original mainsail, which my dad had saved and stored.
When Caroline and I visited an orphanage outside of Hue, Vietnam in November of 2016 on a VBT bicycling vacation, we were moved by what we saw and experienced, and our idea gained more purpose and traction. After visiting this lovely country in which Americans have such an anguished and conflicted history, we wanted to give back somehow. So we decided to have the bags manufactured by Vietnamese people needing work, sell them in the USA, then donate the full proceeds to this orphanage.
The orphanage was founded by Minh Tu, a Buddhist nun, shortly after the Vietnam conflict ended. Being from South Vietnam, her job as a nurse was terminated by the administration of the North after the war was over. She told me that she walked out of her home the next day and found a two-day-old baby left on her doorstep. She kept the baby, who became the seed of her orphanage, which is now home to around 200 children. Some were abandoned at birth, and other children are from families too poor to support them.
But they struggle. They need food -- good quality food; clothing; bedding; and books for school to become educated. They need societal skills to develop themselves as worthy young people in an impoverished country that does not necessarily recognize them as members of the society.
The proceeds from the first sail bags were part of a goal to raise $15,000 to fund a project that helped sustain the orphanage. Minh Tu developed an organic mushroom hothouse and farm near the orphanage. She now feeds the children locally grown, organic food to teach them nutrition and to keep them healthy. The orphanage family uses a portion of their mushroom production to supplement their daily diet, and they sell the remainder to help provide income for the daily expenses of running the organization.
We collaborated with a local woman, Lam, who is a former business partner from our VBT days. She monitors the itemized uses of the donated funds to ensure accountability of the investment. Lam and her family have known Minh Tu for decades. I returned to Hue in April & November of 2018 to assess the workings and the needs of the orphanage.
Since the relationship we developed with the Duc Son Orphanage in 2017, we have gone on to find other organizations and orphanages needing support from Shake Hands With the World. For these stories and to learn more about our recent collaborations, please visit our projects & news pages.
Please consider purchasing a sail bag.
You will indeed impact a deserving child in a positive way.
Photos of TI, QUERENCIA & THEIR SAILS
Thank you to Jake & Chase Marston for the photography & drone footage of Ti and Querencia’s adventures over the years.
