BESEM NATURAL SCENTS
{please visit Besem Natural Scents here}
We love, love, love to feature companies with a mission and culture as inspiring as the product they produce. No, we don’t expect our contributors to be philanthropic angels (after all, we’re not) but when a company makes good and does good, well, we take notice.
Wendy Lawhon of Besem Natural Scents makes good. The pillar candles feature only quality ingredients: sustainably harvested palm wax, locally produced beeswax, and scents created with 100% essential oils. Likewise with the soaps. The hefty bars (5.5 – 7 ounces each!) feature organic and fair trade ingredients, skin nourishing oils, and 100% essential oils for fragrance. Lawhon also does good. The business originally started as a way to fund the Lawhon family’s two adoptions. The success of their all natural product inspired them to continue and now, having not forgotten their roots or the blessing of giving a child a home, Besem Natural Scents donates 10% of the profits to the Antares Foundation, an organization devoted to providing for the needs of children who remain left behind in Petropavlovsk, Kazakhstan. Besem Natural Scents makes good and does good. It’s all good, and we like that.
Besem Natural Scents is giving away one Cinnamon Spice pillar candle and a 3 soap pack to one lucky winner. In order to win, please answer the following question by Saturday, October 31, 2009.
What will you do this holiday season to help yourself and/or your children get the focus off of yourself/themselves and focus instead on giving to others?
Please start checking the winner’s box on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 to see if you won. Good Luck!
My husband and I are throwing a Christmas masquerade charity party to benefit muscular dystrophy.
every one is a little strapped in our family this year – some of us have new babies, some have new houses, and some have new educations – so this year we are giving away some of our belongings to charity and adopting a family.
When I started college, my family agreed that we would stop giving each other “mall” gifts and start giving gifts that helped others. Our preferred website is Heifer International (http://www.heifer.org/) which has gifts starting at $20 (good for the broke grad school years). I also recently found these charitable sites on Oprah: http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20090925-tows-teach-a-girl. Since I graduated, we’ve fallen away from giving any gifts at all, so I’ll encourage a revival of giving-gifts-to-help-others this year.
My family is starting to give more handmade gifts rather than gift cards and such. It means so much more when you put thought and time into it. Also, we focus more on the good food and company rather than presents.
I don’t have kids, but when I do I will teach them that they should always give to others, whether it’s a holiday or not. But the holidays will be a special time to hang out together and eat amazing food, and maybe we’ll all pitch in to buy a bee hive for someone in Africa…..
participating in a giving tree and picking out someone close to his age.
We will do Toys for Tots again this year for sure,
My boyrfriend has brought along with him some great traditions… One is writing on a little piece of paper cut out like a heart what you love about someone in your family. You give heart to each person in your family. I love this because it takes the focus back onto what the holidays are about. Not STUFF, but Love! My family has always adopted another family for xmas. So now we have two great traditions to uphold!
Most of us are making things for each other this Christmas. We wanted to not only save money, but give something person, made by hand that would make someone smile. Less is more and we’re much more focused on family and being with each other – grateful for what we have.
We plan on donating clothes & food to those in need this holiday season.
I always try to do this. We write encouragement notes and pick things in our house to giveaway. It’s not all about presents!
My sisters are in high school and developed a program for area teens to volunteer at a local assisted living home. It’s called “Buds to Blossoms” and focuses on developing inter-generational relationships. My sisters are pretty darn awesome. And were even in the local newspaper this week because of it!
I’m working on a project to photograph families with someone fighting overseas. And dad’s developing a prison project called “Read to Me, Daddy” where an inmate is video taped reading a children’s book and a copy of the tape and the book are sent to his child(or children). It provides a unique experience while encouraging literacy. All the books are donated too!
It’s true – my family is absolutely amazing!
I will be visiting the gym at least 5 times per week. This will help me go through all of the good temptations that the Holiday brings. Maybe I can burn some of those calories!
My family makes Christmas boxes for children with the Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas child. We shop together and do the boxes together.
Every year I get a Santa letter from NY Cares and mail a Christmas gift to a child that might not otherwise get one. It makes me feel good that at least one kid will be happier on Christmas morning because of me =)
my family has never been huge on presents and in the past few years we’ve taken to donating to at least one charity each so we’ll probably be doing that again this year. happy holidays to everyone!
Christmas has never been about getting in my house…my 8 year old pretends he is santa and goes through his things to pick out what he wants to give away that year, sometimes he even gives away NEW toys and clothes because he understands how some children get nothing…not just at christmas but all year long the way he does…he never asks for christmas gifts.