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The Dream has come true...
The Dreaming Together Hardware Store (Sonando Juntos Ferreteria) in Chacraseca is OPEN!
And after just two months, the residents are celebrat ing it as one of the best things that has happened in their community!
"I can ride my horse to get what I need!"
"It's wonderful, now I don't have to go the Leon to buy nails!"
"I think I can repair my house now!"
 
The Ferreteria opened in late December, but sales have exceeded the women's expectations and already two young people from the community have been hired as clerks, and an umemployed farmer has been hired as the guard! (Three jobs in a community with 95% unemployment is significant!)
In late February, a group of North American women traveled from Bartlesville, Oklahoma to participate in the Grand Opening of the Ferreteria. They brought some donted tools with them, and together the women of Chacraseca and the women of Oklahoma painted the "Dreaming Together" logo on the Ferreteria, cleaned and sorted tools, and organized inventory, while they shared their stories, their laughter, their hopes and dreams.
 
The hardware store is the first step in the "Dreaming Together" social business effort funded by JustHope in Chacraseca. In October, donors provided $5000 to build the store building, and created a $10,000 loan fund to support inventory purchase for the Ferreteria. (We still need the final $1000)
The 25 women who are part of the "Mujeres Unidas" (Women United) microcredit project have agreed to jointly be responsible for repaying the $10,000 loan over the next ten years. They are working together to staff and manage the infant business. AND they area already dreaming about the next step - the opening of a "Cafetin" (café) next door to the hardware store. Then beyond that, a t-shirt making industry... and then... we'll who knows what will dream itself into being when partners work and hope and imagine together what is possible!
Help us raise the last $1000 to complete the inventory!
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