By Aaron Betschel

In January 2010' I took my first trip to Tanzania, Africa. However, this story isn't about the life changing trip that I took, but how it affected those around me. I needed to raise money to pay for the trip. Fortunately I have a huge family and collected most of my funds from them. The experiences and stories I brought back with me impacted the people who helped send me. In fact, it did something amazing to one person in particular. After sharing story after story my Grandma Wanda felt like she could do more than just support me, but make a difference globally. She had this awesome idea. Before I tell you her idea, I have to tell you that she has a gift. She is creative and talented. For years she had been doing crafts and had been going to craft fairs selling her goods to those that were interested. This side job/ hobby faded away as she changed her occupation and moved on with her time. She had a great craft room upstairs in her house that wasn't being used like it used to be. Her closets were full of fabrics, pins, needles, and many other crafty supplies. They just sat there waiting to be used.

     When I got back from Africa, and shared my stories with her, her brain began to work on something I couldn't have imagined. She came up to me one day and asked me if she could make me some backpacks to sell to raise money for my future trips. A few months later she came to me with a box. This box had 100 drawstring backpacks in it. I wasn't sure how these would sell here, but mentioned to her that I thought we could send them to the places that FFCC goes to help those in need. She loved the idea. A couple weeks later she called me and said she had 100 more...was she serious? She was spending all of her free time sewing, cutting, and measuring. She loved it. In fact, she started to make purses too. Then she made shoulder bags...then came along bean bags. She was using all of her supplies on people she was never going to meet or see. This just blew me away because I knew the people getting these were going to be so thankful and use them for everything. My grandma will never travel to see what she has done, but we have. In fact, to date she has put together close to 500 backpacks, 100 purses/shoulder bags and 200 bean bags.