What's next
over 7 years ago – Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 07:52:53 PM

THANK YOU!!!!! 

We are so incredibly grateful to the 631 backers who believed in this project! 

We're taking a day or two to celebrate -- and we'll have a more substantive update about the project in a little bit.

For now, a few words about logistics:

Survey

We'll send you a survey via BackerKit.com later this week.  It only takes a minute to complete.  If you don't complete the survey, you will not get your rewards.  We're starting shipping with the Edline prints on Monday, December 18th -- so if you want your print by December 24th, please complete the survey by Sunday, December 17th. 

Want more rewards?

When you get your BackerKit survey, you can choose to add more rewards to your shopping cart.  Sky's the limit!  Each purchase will go towards the Heliotrope Foundation's work in Haiti. 

Keep an eye on your inbox -- we'll keep you updated in the next few days.

All the best,

The Heliotrope Foundation Team

Today's the day!
over 7 years ago – Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 05:42:04 PM

Here it is!!! Our Kickstarter campaign ends tonight at midnight.

The fact that you guys have gotten us this far with all else that’s going on in the world is restoring our faith in humanity. You have taken a difficult moment and made the decision to continue to help others, in spite of all else, and we hope you feel how huge that is! It’s huge.

Here’s the breakdown of what we’re looking at:

All funds above our $75,000 goal will go towards a building contingency fund, in case construction and materials run over budget.

If we reach $85,000, we can make general repairs on the community center -- the first structure we built in Haiti.

We've been working in this community for 6 years. As our major building projects come to a close, we want to be sure to leave all we have built in the best possible shape, and leave folks with the best possible tool kit to keep maintaining it. All homes and buildings need maintenance, and earth built homes are no different! Every bit we get past our original goal means the work we leave behind will be stronger, and better prepared to weather the future.

Any funds not used for building will be held for salaries for teachers in our Klub Obzevatwa after-school program, which we hope to continue long after the building work is complete.

Thank you so so much for believing in this work. You are making it happen!

With deepest appreciation,

Callie & the Heliotrope Foundation team

P.S.: Later this week, we'll send you a survey via Backerkit. We'll need a quick response in order to get rewards shipped out, so keep an eye on your inbox!

“When we give in the world what we want the most, we heal the broken part inside each of us.”

-Eve Ensler

Home stretch!
over 7 years ago – Thu, Dec 08, 2016 at 06:49:37 PM

Wow!  I’m so so grateful to each of you who have helped us reach our initial $60,000 goal!  Please help spread the word so we can make our stretch goal and build something beautiful in Cormiers. 

With 5 days left, we are really hoping to hit $75,000 -- this will allow us to go beyond a basic home design by adding a system of rainwater collection; a composting toilet & restroom area; solar lighting and appropriate landscaping to promote soil retention.

Hitting our stretch goal will also help with our goal of using Haitian-grown bamboo.  Extra funding will allow us to set up a bamboo treatment and drying station from scratch that will live long beyond this building project. 

Thank you for making all of this possible!

In this proud moment I can't help thinking back to the day that I learned that the community center we built in 2011 is known locally as “The Castle of Cormiers.”

That was the moment I understood that we had created a place of pride for the community, and something that had helped make their neighborhood special. As we continued to build, and continued to adapt building styles to local needs, some momentum started to build around what Cormiers had embraced. The village started to identify itself as a place where new architectural ideas were welcome, and other new experiments began cropping up in town.

Haiti's economic conditions led to construction methods that made the 2010 earthquake a disaster of epic proportions. The overuse of low-quality cinder blocks was a direct cause of the quake's unprecedented devastation.

And so for us, the problem became: How we get more options on the table, more tools in the toolkit, and more ideas and skills in the minds of local builders? How could the international architectural and creative community share what it was learning with a place that could benefit from that knowledge? And could we do so while building safe beautiful structures for people to live and work in?

The bamboo house is an extension of that philosophy and practice.

Bamboo is an incredible plant which is having a global renaissance as a modern building material. Some strains of it as are strong as steel, but, unlike steel, there is no dangerous mining process, and growing it absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere while preserving and enriching the soil. In Haiti, as farmers struggle to deal with epidemic deforestation and erosion on their hillsides, they have begun looking to planting bamboo as a solution. When we heard this, we knew the time had come to realize the dream of building a beautiful home focusing on bamboo as a building material.

And so here we are! It’s the last few days of the campaign and we are hoping to make it to our stretch goal so that we can continue our methodology of paying strong wages, and employing dozens of builders and craftspeople to create a true thing of beauty.

This is more than a house, it’s a keystone moment for a community which is struggling with the aftermath of a hurricane when it had not yet fully recovered from the earthquake.

I've sometimes wondered why I've continued working in Haiti for so long. We thought we were just going to build one building, but we stayed for 6 years. Now I believe that maybe it was so we could be here at this moment, when the community needs us again now more than ever.

Thank you!!

Let’s do this!!

Callie and the Heliotrope Team

One week to go and we've still got some ground to cover! We've added a special edition of Swoon earrings to the rewards to help us achieve our goal.
over 7 years ago – Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 06:14:13 AM

Building with Konbit Shelter is some of the most effective work I’ve ever done. We've built two lasting homes and a community center, started an after school program, and provided dozens of well-paying jobs that have made a huge difference to people struggling first with the aftermath of an earthquake and now the devastating effects of a hurricane. All of this has come from our creative community, and that means you. We have pulled all of this together through the creation of art, and the support of artists, art patrons, and arts organizations. This has been, at every step of the way, a process of redefining what art can do. Using art as a truly transformative tool to effect change in people’s lives, to mend what is broken, and to create beauty in times when hope is hard to find. Doing this work, and seeing its power is one of the things that keeps my faith in the world alive. Straight up. So here we are in the final week, and the truth is, we need to do more than reach our goal, we need to pass it!

I don’t want to let this community down. We want to pay good wages, do great work, and keep our programs running for the kids for the next year. In order to get us that much closer, I’ve added another collaborative reward. Working with designer Corinne Loperfido, we’ve created two different styles of earrings from my paper-cut designs. We hope that you will take this opportunity to do a little Christmas shopping, share this project with friends, and know that your participation is something that many, many people will remember for years to come.

One more week to go. Let’s show ourselves and the folks in Haiti that 2016 could not overwhelm us, and could not stop us from continuing to build the better world that we want to see, together.

With love, Callie and the Heliotrope Team

Closer look: Meet Cormier's craft makers
over 7 years ago – Mon, Dec 05, 2016 at 10:22:09 AM

Hi friends --

Thank you for carrying us past the halfway mark in our Kickstarter campaign! 

Since the 2010 earthquake, we've worked alongside members of the community of Cormiers, Haiti to help their process of rebuilding home and livelihood after a natural disaster of unparalleled proportion. We went there to help, but we found a surprising (maybe not so surprising) thing — we were the ones who gained the most.

The warmth and joy that has been shared with us every day has brightened the fire in our hearts.  With this Kickstarter campaign, we're hoping to share that spirit with you by bringing the beautiful crafts of Cormiers to you. 

This short video by filmmaker Fredric King gives a behind the scenes look of how it all came together:

Thank you for donating to this campaign, and for believing in the importance this work! In every way we would not have been able to keep this effort going without you.

With gratitude,

Callie & the whole Konbit Shelter team