A Hill of Beans

Welcome to a new month! April is going to be all about giving. We'll share ideas for giving back to reputable organizations, giving of your time, and even giving fun gifts. We want to inspire you to give where there's a need in your community or where your heart leads you. We hope that you'll share some ideas, as well.

Since it's Friday, we're going to throw a party. A party for a cause. A couple months ago, a few friends and I planned a party for the Women's Bean Project. It's an organization here in Denver that helps women to learn valuable job skills and get back on their feet. They make and sell simple bean soup, dip and dessert mixes through their website and through parties. Before you get worried, this is not like a make-up party where you get pressured into buying something that you will never use. It's a get-together of friends with good food, good conversation (hopefully), and an opportunity to buy some tasty food to help women in need.

Here's how it worked for us. We contacted the Women's Bean Project to let them know that we wanted to host a party. They gave us samples of dip, soups, and cookies to make for the gathering. A couple of the soups needed to be made ahead of time (beans needed to be soaked), but we made everything else in the hour before the party. They loaded us up with boxes of their products, including beautiful, but somewhat pricey jewelry. We invited all of the friends we could think of and bought some chips and crackers to accompany the dips.

It was fun to group different circles of friends together for this great cause. We chatted and ate. Most of the food products were purchased before the end of the evening. The jewelry was not, but we felt great about how much we had sold for the organization and had a great time in the process.

If you don't live in the Denver metro area, there are still great options for something similar. While it doesn't involve food, Bead for Life is another extraordinary organization for which you can throw parties. Are there any interesting organizations in your area?