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New Shipment, Masks & More

Uncharted territory is all we can say! Even the 2015 earthquakes didn’t fully prepare us for this Covid scenario. But we are forging ahead. We thought we might get a shipment out in early July, then as Covid surged in Nepal (see Covid blogpost) it turned to late July. Now it appears that international flights won’t resume until August 17! So, we’ve had to punt. Here’s what we think lies ahead:

We are Fedexing a shipment of about 200kg (at a very high shipping rate) out of Nepal this week to hopefully arrive by August 7. We included high demand but lighter weight items like headbands, masks, gift envelopes, slippers, felt flowers, oven mitts and potholders in this shipment. Even though the shipping is 3X as much we aren’t increasing our prices on these items. We just want to generate some quick sales and cash for the producers, GHT and you. Fingers crossed!

Our big shipment (heavier items) is packed and ready to leave on the first available international flight, hopefully August 17th! Nepal is no longer on lockdown and covid is spiking so we’re just waiting and watching. We have learned to say “who knows”! This shipment hopefully will be at our warehouse by early September. Luckily we still have a lot of wonderful items in stock in the warehouse, including fall knits that we stockpile through the year.

Our producers have already missed one of the 6 shipments of the year due to lockdown restrictions. Although we are trying to make that up it is a huge loss to them, just as our loss of sales has been to us and yours to you. Luckily our producers got a big payment in early March and knew to watch their money but regardless it is getting tight so we will be sending the payment for all of the late August shipment this week so they can stay on top of paying their employees and suppliers. For our partners like ACP who have much higher overhead and valuable benefit programs for many marginalized women, we have facilitated a grant through Conscious Connections Foundation (see article below) and are actively doing more fundraising to help them stay afloat.

For a fairly current look (it changes daily) at the covid situation in Nepal and the ways CCF is working to help out please see our latest blogpost and the CCF website. It’s quite detailed on the general impact of Covid. If you want to donate to our relief efforts 100% of your donation goes directly to relief and we greatly appreciate anything large or small. Denise & Ric are personally matching up to $2500 for relief to ACP.

We are trying our best to get the producers as much work as possible and to get your goods to you for the same prices and in the same timely manner as in the past. We appreciate your patience as we navigate these uncharted waters. You have always been amazing to work with and we’re pretty sure you haven’t changed. We’ll keep you updated on FB and through our phone calls but feel free to call or email if you have any questions. We may not have the absolute answer but we will give it our best shot.

In the meantime, again, know that we still have a lot of stock in our warehouse and if you can work with us to substitute similar items that’s always appreciated.

Thanks for your continued support!

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