Gearing up for Tree Twinning season is not for the faint of heart. It takes a team of INCREDIBLE volunteers to get it off the ground and into little brown boxes.
(We are talking design, laser set up, writing sales pages, sourcing sustainable wood, cutting disks, drying, sanding, laser engraving, box making, moss collecting, stringing baubles, stamping, boxing, packaging, printing and posting. Phew - all to get those trees planted.
This year we had over 20 people helping us to pull it all together!
Superheroes making baubles, ready to wing their way through your letter boxes and hang with pride on your Christmas tree!
This year though was a little different... Joe had the idea to ask our community of supporters to re-sell Baubles so that more trees can be planted.
I was skeptical - would people want to do it, would it work?
The reason behind Joe’s thinking was 2022 sales almost exactly matched 2021 and we felt like that was the ceiling of trees to be planted by the direct FR community.
And we are all about getting more trees in the ground, more planted and therefore offering more money-saving and money-making solutions for families in Malawi.
Over the course of the 2023 Twinning season we met:
Beti Kaliati*: Who has been struggling to buy fertliser, with trees, her soil is richer, and more productive. She also is benefiting from fruit trees for nutrition and to sell.
& Jennifer: Who told us that because of firewood savings, she has more money to put towards food, shoes and education for her children.
These incredible ladies represent the 400 families taking part in the project and show just how life-changing growing trees is in Malawi.
So we took the plunge, pushed the boat out, and asked you to give us a hand selling baubles and planting trees.
So we can grow the project into new areas, impacting more families and fighting climate change in what we think is a sustainable people-honoring future-proof way.
This year 9 wonderful supporters helped us by re-selling baubles.
Helping us reach a grand total of selling 377 baubles and making 377 Christmas Trees twinned in 2023.
We had 25 double-up-er-ers for our Green Friday campaign, planting 225 extra trees
Meaning 4,092 trees are being planted as we speak from 2023 Tree Twinnings!
And 20 families like Jennifer and Mrs Beti Kaliati partnering with us to grow the trees AND see incredible practical and financial changes in their lives.
Here's how Lorna found selling baubles...
"I think the baubles are such a fantastic idea & the expansion of encouraging us to be sellers was brilliant. I loved that there was no pressure to sell and no expectation to sell a particular number or any initial outlay which to be honest may have put me off committing to it, knowing how busy the run up to Christmas is for us as a family.
I am not a natural seller or big social media person! However I shared with people I thought might be interested & several people bought them.”
- Lorna
We think Tree Twinning is worth every moment spent preparing and creating baubles each year.
What do you think?
Thank you all so much for your support. Mark it in your diary/make a memo to commit to being a re-seller in 2024!
No pressure, no strings…
Let’s see where this year takes us.
Zikomo!
Beth and the FR team
** Beti's family have been supported by Welsh Government Funding, which has transformed the project this year! Huge thanks to the Welsh Government and their on-going life-changing support of communities in Africa.