One bead at a time

   ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ aveciana@MiamiHerald.com

Published on 2007-02-24, Page 1E, Miami Herald, The (FL)

 On a perfect winter evening in Miami, balmy in temperature and scented with night jasmine, six women gather around a pool patio table to talk, sip wine and build wells in Africa. The first two tasks come naturally, but the last requires some effort -- and good eyesight. With nail clippers, beads and spools of stringing wire, they thread and crimp and tie to create earrings that they will sell to friends and family. All the money raised goes to the 1000 Wells Project of Blood:Water Mission (www.bloodwatermission.com), a nonprofit group committed to providing clean water to communities in Africa.

 The earrings use blue and clear beads shaped like drops of water that symbolize the life-giving source. But for these friends, the earrings represent much more, too: a passion to do good, a commitment to other women and the realization that their lives are blessed beyond what the rest of the world might imagine.

 "It really creates a whole awareness of what we take for granted," says Robin Houlberg, a homemaker in Kendall. "It's made my whole family rethink how we use water, even how we flush the toilet."

 Since last fall, the women, all of them from Kendall and Pinecrest, have made at least 250 pairs of earrings and raised as much as $5,184 -- or more, because they don't know how many people have gone online to make separate donations. That's almost enough to sponsor two wells, at $3,000 apiece. (The earrings, packaged in see-through gray pouches, include a business card bearing a photo of a spigot, with the words "thirst for change" and the Internet address for the organization.)

 When they recently added the individual sales figures of the group, the friends were astounded. Quipped Hilda "Chiny" Chewning, who came up with the earrings fundraiser: "Not bad. Before we started this, we didn't know the first thing about making jewelry. We just knew about buying."

 The earrings -- $8 for a single bead, $15 for a cluster -- have sold by word of mouth. Some showed the jewelry to family. Others brought samples to their jobs and discovered they were a hot fashion item. For instance, Chewning, a creative director at an ad agency, initially took a basket of the earrings to her office. Within 30 minutes she had sold every pair.

 Then they began receiving orders from relatives out of state. Linda Ashby, who often hosts the get-togethers for the group, showed her sister-in-law a sample. Now she wants to take the idea to her woman's group in Ohio.

 WOMEN'S BOND

 Why? The bond of women helping women transcends cultures, income, religion and miles. "When I'm working on the earrings or selling the earrings, there's this part of me that just glows," explains Ashby, a special education teacher. "I know I'm helping another woman, and through her I'm helping her children, her family, her entire village."

 She likes to imagine women in Africa gathering around the new well just as her friends gather around her table to bond and share gossip. "I can just see the women over there doing the same thing we are, telling stories and laughing with each other," she adds.

 The earring-making group hadn't really worked on a community service project before, unless you count offering free Christmas wrapping at the K-mart on South Dixie Highway. They were a book club that met weekly to discuss spiritual tomes at each other's houses over dinner. Truth be told, there wasn't a lot of book talk, either.

 "It's just girlfriends sitting around talking and connecting," Houlberg says. "And of course it involves food and a little to drink."

 HOW IT STARTED

 About a year and a half ago, Chewning attended a church leadership conference in Atlanta, where organizers showed a video of singer Bono explaining that this generation's legacy would be how it took care of Africa. That was followed by an African woman who spoke about the relentless search for safe drinking water, a chore that falls entirely on women.

 "I was so moved by this woman and how she described her day that I knew I had to do something. As a mother it was unbearable for me to think how these women were giving their children dirty water because that's all they had," she recalls.

 Chewning presented some unsettling statistics to the group:

 * More than half of Africans lack access to safe drinking water.

 * Over 80 percent of the disease in developing countries is related to poor drinking water and sanitation.

 * The average distance a woman in Africa or Asia walks to collect water is 6 km, or 3.75 miles.

 * The weight of water they carry on their heads is nearly the maximum baggage weight allowed by airlines, 44 pounds.

 * Only 4 percent of renewable water is used in Africa because of a lack of wells, canals, pumps, reservoirs and other irrigation systems.

 Though they were upset by these numbers, the Miami women didn't know how to help at first, except for making donations online. Then, on an antiquing trip to Mount Dora in Central Florida, Houlberg and Chewning happened upon a beading booth. The idea was born.

 CYNICISM FADES

 "Personally," Chewning say, "it has dispelled my cynicism about one person or one little book club being able to make change."

 But it also has done more. Threading beads with girlfriends has cemented the bonds between these women. Beverly Zanotti moved to Miami from southern France and joined the group about a year ago. Making jewelry has been like a welcome wagon event.

 "This has built a connection between us that we couldn't have predicted," Zanotti says. "And for me, the group has been a real blessing. I don't see this finishing for a long, long time, though. I think it's going to grow beyond us because it's already snowballed from what we expected."

 MORE INFO For more on the earrings, e-mail thirstforchange@yahoo.com and you will be sent images of the jewelry and purchase information.

Copyright (c) 2007 Miami Herald