TRAMA Benefit Party

---

Earlier this week (the 19th), we had our first benefit party with TRAMA! They actually had a benefit party like, the night before we started volunteering with them, but this was the first one we had a hand in helping out with. It actually started because a lady named Denise, who owns a restaurant called La Esquina Asiatica (the Asian Corner), was being featured on a program back in Singapore, her home country. They were doing a piece on entrepreneurs who have been successful outside of their native country. Well, Denise lives at Yoga House with a number of TRAMA volunteers and it was brought up that we should collaborate on a night. Denise wanted a full house to show the news crew and everyone back home; and we can always use fundraising ideas! We called it "Sushi and Style," and had a fashion show full of looks featured at TRAMA - scarves, earrings, huipiles (traditional shirts), bags, everything! There was also super good sushi being made by Denise and a lady from Japan. It's like impossible to get sushi down here so we were pretty sure having sushi in the name of the night would be a big draw for the foreigners down here... and we were right! It was a packed house! I believe in total, with sales from the little store we set up, our proceeds from the sushi, and us selling Sangria, we made right around 2,000 quetzals. Internet is around 250Q a month, so we set up the business with internet for awhile (TRAMA didn't get internet until the beginning of October! It's hard to run an international business without internet!). I think we're helping out one of the weavers with doctor bills as well. She has (or had? I'm not 100% sure) cancer, and is still seeing doctors pretty often. It gets expensive, so I'd love it so much if we could give her a bit to help out! There are a ton of pictures from the event up on Facebook (you should probably like www.facebook.com/trama.textiles and go look at all of them 😉 ) but I'm including some of my favorites up here!

All in all, it was a great night. It was a total success, and it was fun! We had a blast and it was awesome to see everyone's hard work coming together. We had so many compliments from the people who attended about how it was such a fun and unique benefit.

---

Photos

Carla and I
We had a photo booth set up! This is me with one of the women's daughters. She's 7 and pretty darn adorable :)

Amparo, Pamela and Fabiana
Two women we work with daily and one of our newest volunteers, Pamela!

Roger and Amparo
Awww :)

TRAMA team + Denise!
All of us volunteers with the lady who owns the restaurant!

Carla weaving
Normally the girls start weaving at 10 or 11 I believe, but Carla is already learning - and she's so good at it!!