Hello and Happy Wednesday! It is a happy Wednesday for me indeed.
Do you ever have one of those days when you are fully aware of the ample blessings and good fortune all around you?
Today is one of those days. Last night I had a wonderful girls night out. What a treat; complete with great food, conversation, girl togetherness, and a movie! Surprisingly, one of the best parts was the movie, this was no ordinary movie, it was a special screening of the film, Girl Rising. I am pretty sure just watching the trailer below will bring you to tears. The film is really well done, beautiful while presenting hard, sad and often ugly truths, challenging yet inspiring and encouraging. Instead of leaving you discouraged by the size of the problem it definitely leaves you motivated to be part of the change. Which, of course that left me with the question: What can I do right now? The answer came to me this morning as I was getting dressed. I have been so lucky to have so many generous friends (with great taste, I might add) who have passed on their gently used maternity clothes. It has amazed me how many items were sitting by my front door, at exactly the right time during my belly expansion. So, as I was looking through my super cute, used, maternity dress options, I realized that the best way I could pay my friends' generosity forward would be to donate the money that I had budgeted for maternity clothes to a worthy cause!
Since, I was so inspired by the film and the awareness they are creating, we decided to go with their 10x10 Fund. The 10x10 fund is a global action fund to raise awareness about girls' education. Normally, we would choose to give directly to one of the organizations (World Vision, Partners in Health), who are actually on the ground doing the work of educating girls, that way more money would go straight to the cause we want to support. However, in this case we decided to support the larger fund because we were so impressed by the film and how they are spreading the word. So, thank you to all my wonderful friends who have so willingly shared all their items, thus enabling the chain of sharing and love to go further and impact girls in other parts of the world! WOOHOO!
So back to today's post and What I Wore :)
I am wearing hand-me-down maternity clothes and a smile on my face because I know I am one of the lucky ones. Lucky, because I was born in the United States into a family that loved and cherished me, I was born with rights, opportunities and privileges not given to all girls, and I was considered as important and valuable as the boy who was born in the room next to me.
Oh and I am wearing this awesome necklace from 31Bits that my mom lent me. Read this post to see how this necklace is also making a positive impact for women in Africa.
Don't forget to check out all the other great "What I Wore Wednesdays" over at ThePleatedPoppy.
Happy Wednesday!