On The Ninth Day of Christmas...

My true love gave to meeeee:

NINE ladies dancing,

Eight maids a-milking,

Seven swans a-swimming,

Six geese a-laying,

Fiiiive gooolden riiiings,

Fo-our calling birds,

Three french hens,

Two-ooo turtle doves,

and a partri-idge in a pear treeeeee!

The ladies represent the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit (although the Catholic Church lists 12...) or simply ladies dancing!

Today's charity is Shepherd's Door and is very close to my heart. When I was newly out of school, I was blessed enough to work on the Portland Rescue Mission's new venture called Shepherd's Door: a facility to house and care for single women and their children. Then years later, I was blessed to work on it again! This time it was built and it is gorgeous. It truly is a home, not just a shelter, for women who are in need. There are classrooms for the women and a full facility for the children on site. Women are taught life skills to be able to support their families while knowing their children are safe and learning themselves.

When I first moved to Portland and for the next almost 10 years, I worked downtown. I struggled with how many homeless people there are! I didn't know how to help, and I didn't understand why there were so many. You can learn ways to help here. And you can carry these coupons, and hand them to people you meet to offer them a way to get help.

I've only been lucky enough to have met a few people like Jan Marshall in my life. She is the Director of Women's Ministries, and is truly inspirational. So many of the things we hoped for the site, but thought wouldn't be possible due to financial constraints, were not only included but our hopes were FAR exceeded. She said "believe", we did, and it all came through. She has her arms wrapped around Shepherd's Door in a giant hug, and we are all the better for it.

Again, I'll send 15% of any purchases to the Shepherd's Door - just email me after checkout, and I'll take care of it.