OVER $10,000.00 in SHIRT sales and still LESPWAING for more!!

I am still waiting for you Ellen.. I thought I would try a direct approach...El I know you are a famous person but so am I! I know you are rich but so am I. I know you are beautiful but so am I. I know you are a humanitarian but so am I. I know you are a strong woman who is highly compassionate and so am I. I also know that you WILL contact me as we have much more in common than you realize! Let's chat it up....sister! :) by the way my cat is still waiting to hear back from you too! 
So LESPWA your way to Canada eh? Wonder what it takes to hear from you? 

Over  $8,000.00 of shirts have been sold in the HELP HOPE HEAL T shirt drive...Amazing but just getting started! Catch the LESPWA "tap tap" and come along for the ride. I will be taking all funds this July! GO CANADA GO! Keep caring, keep knowing that YOU make a difference! IT costs $27.00 to send a child to school. Medicine and food is expensive in Haiti. Let's show the world that WE LESPWA!

Over $6,000.00 and groooooowing!

If you have ever had a thought...that turned to an idea.....that became reality...well then, that is what HELP HEAL HOPE has become! It was a simple creative idea that ignited a spark that grew into a flame that is now burning strong!  Sometimes when we aspire to take action it creates a wave of life! A unique but common action that we all do...think! I simply knew that I must act and do something to help.  If we could change the world with one action of HOPE and love could it become more? Stop and think...if you had a thought that could become an action that could  make a difference to someone would you pursue it? Would you step out of your comfortable world to enter into a drive toward a goal? If just one famous person would stop to take the time to read this and know that LESPWA means hope...then maybe it could start a spark of action. 

Bamboo T shirts are made in Canada eh?

As I wait for Ellen to respond my red hair is turning grey! Maggie is weeping dog tears and not understanding why Ellen has not called yet! In the meantime, orders are booming, Lespwa is catching in the KW area, students are buying shirts like hotcakes on Shrove Tuesday, sales have reached over $6,000.00  and growing and I am driven to sell more! The shirts are really selling themselves...as the whole
idea behind the T shirt drive gives people the chance to make a difference and show they care! The T shirt design was done by a local graphic designer and the word Lespwa was chosen by me....for the HOPE of the future of Haitian children! Over 1/3 of all children living in Haiti do NOT make it alive to their 5th birthday! I have added 2 photos of the 2 of the 10 colour choices of the Bamboo T's. Great wearing, very trendy and beautifully fitted! OK Ellen I challenge you to Indian leg wrestling...bet you have never seen that before!

Welcome students

I would like to welcome you to my blogspot. I have never done a blog before so please be patient with me!
My goal is to promote my T shirt drive to teenagers around the world. I want people to know that Lespwa (Hope) is possible and that you play a very important role in tomorrow's future! When you were small you learned how to be cared for, loved and supported. Now it is time to use what comes naturally, and care for someone else. In Haiti, it costs $27.00 a month for a student to go to school. The cost of living in Haiti high. Poverty is a way of life. Please post what you think about how you can help support and care for individuals just like yourself a world away.I can not wait to hear from you and about all your wonderful ideas.

NEW ORDER JUST ARRIVED!

OK Ellen where are you? If Celine calls me first I might be disappointed! Maggie is still wearing her shirt for you! The weekend after the article I had over 50 emails and 20 phone messages! Way to go K.W. and Cambridge community! Let's wear our Lespwa proudly! If we each spent $10.00 for shirt and went without what that $10.00 could buy us...just think that you have sent a Haitian child to school for 1/2 a month!
It costs $27.00/month to send a child to school! Most children in Haiti only go to grade 6 if they are that lucky! They then help the family survive....if they have learned a trade like sewing, embroidery etc. If not they might shine shoes sell oranges or beg! I am going to Haiti in July....lets see how many children we can help between now and then!  I talked with the principal of the school on the weekend....and some of the children perished in the earthquake.

Please buy a T shirt ! New colours and sizes in! Email me or call! Where are my USA orders????? Ellen help me! ok? :) Joyce

Clothing Haiti aid with compassion - The Record Feb.5/10

Joyce Crone, a teacher from St. Mary's high school, is selling T-shirts for Haiti, where she plans to travel to this summer and help other teachers.

February 04, 2010 By Liz Monteiro, Record staff
CAMBRIDGE — Joyce Crone plans to send a T-shirt to Ellen DeGeneres, Celine Dion and Michaëlle Jean.
“My hope is that this really catches on like wildfire,’’ said the 48-year-old Cambridge woman who is selling T-shirts for Haiti. All the money collected will support the Three Angels School and the Sisters of Charity Hospital in Port-au-Prince.
Crone hopes by sending the T-shirts to popular cultural icons with heart and people with position, others will become aware of her mission and buy a shirt.
“I want to give exposure to this. People will see it and buy it,’’ she said as she was planning on putting a shirt in the mail for Ellen today.
“I could do what a lot of people do and give money. It’s noble and necessary to give. But I had to do more. I had to act,’’ said Crone, who’s spent $2,000 of her own money to buy fair trade, cotton and bamboo T-shirts.
As someone who’s visited Haiti three times and plans to return this summer, she said she felt a deep connection to the Haitians.
“I couldn’t stand seeing bodies scooped up like they didn’t matter. I just thought all these people have names and they are real people. It broke my heart,’’ said Crone, who was saddened to hear that the school she visited in Haiti lost three of its 13 teachers in the horrific earthquake that hit the island nation last month.
She decided to use a Haitian design with an angel blowing on a trumpet with the title Lespwa, meaning hope in Haitian Creole. The designs are carved into recycled steel oil drums sold in Haiti.
Crone first went to Haiti in 2005 with five other women to hold sick and dying babies in the Sisters of Charity Hospital in Port-au-Prince.
And like most people who travel to Haiti, the experience was life-altering and keeps bringing her back to the island nation.
“The rhythm of Haiti gets under your skin,’’ she said. “Once you go, it becomes part of you.’’
Crone said she was awestruck by the Haitian people and their remarkable sense of pride and dignity despite the poverty they live in.
As someone who hails from Six Nations, she said she feels a similar plight between the forgotten people of Haiti and First Nations.
“The eyes and ears are on Haiti now but, before the earthquake, there was no electricity, people were dying before and there was poverty before,’’ she said.
Crone returned to Haiti in 2007 to assist in the hospital and then in the summer of 2008 she went again but this time to help train Haitian teachers.
As an educator with 25 years experience plus leadership knowledge with running the special education department at St. Mary’s High School, she, along with two other local teachers, were pumped to share Canadian instructional methods with teachers in Haiti.
“I wanted to be a teacher since I was in Grade 2. This comes natural to me,’’ said Crone on her decision to help teachers in Haiti. “It’s something that is my forte and my passion and I knew it would be far-reaching.’’
An initial donation from Barrday Inc., an industrial textile company in Cambridge helped cover the teachers’ airfares.
Crone said teachers at the Three Angels School in Haiti used rudimentary measures such as a slate and a blackboard to teach their students.
There were 350 children from kindergarten to Grade 6 in one portable, she said.
Crone began devising curriculum and put a teacher training team together called TLC — Teaching and Learning with Compassion.
“They (Haitian teachers) didn’t know they could use humour in the classroom or discipline students without doing it physically,’’ she said.
Crone also took classroom supplies to Haiti including old textbooks, pencils, pens and paper.
Along with two other St. Mary’s teachers — Shannon Penney and Christine Devine — she will go to Haiti for two weeks in July. But this time in addition to training teachers, they could be painting walls, constructing a classroom or “whatever needs to be done,’’ she said.
If you’re interested in getting a shirt, contact Crone at jcrone1051@rogers.com or 519-621-6139.