Dear Ocean Ohana,

Wow, what an amazing 2016 we have had! And we are extremely grateful for it. We grew our family and expanded, we opened a gallery, we made many new friends, we got wiser and more creative. We have a lot to be grateful for.

I have always believed we need to show our gratitude. We make a difference which matters in the world, when our actions succeed in putting wings to our words.

This is how great work happens, and blessing rains down in a community and for others we would want to touch around the world.

This coming year, may you be blessed beyond all that you can ask wish or hope for, and in turn take that blessing and share it with others.

Thank you for being a part of all we do through our little company. You made this so much fun and successful beyond what we had hoped for… And we did this together!

As we “ring in the new year” (pun intended for sure) all of us here in California and on Bali, who work to create our ocean-centric art, offer this word of inspiration.

“The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.”
– Anaïs Nin

With love and gratitude, 

Donna, David and the Betty / Ocean Room Family in California and Bali

Why we created Bright Friday and the No More Black Friday credo

Every year, we choose to raise the bar on the first “shopping day” of the Holidays, by holding a Betty Belts Cause Day (one of many over the years benefitting various causes we believe in).  

Bright Friday is now a Betty Belts tradition.

This is why:

Bright Friday allows us to come together as a Community, and through the act of shopping for our loved ones, generate benefit to people in need.

On this awesome day, you’re invited to delight in choosing treasured BB gifts from the sea that speak to the people you love, and simultaneously share your kindness and generosity during the Holiday season as 20% of all money spent on those purchases will be donated on Monday directly to East Bali Poverty Project.

We think of it as a Christmas card filled with love and impact, to the rest of the world, from all of us.

This week on…

Betty Belts Bright Friday
20% of our gross sales(online and in-store)
will be donated to
East Bali Poverty Project

Click on the links and this little video we made below to learn more about how this cause organization is reviving a once desolate and forgotten community by providing education, health care, sustainable agriculture and community economic development. You can support the amazing work these devoted folks do in educating their youth for a bright future by visiting our beautiful Downtown Ventura shop, the Ocean Room Gallery & through shopping online this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Or, even better, donate directly.

“Charity feeds for a day. EBPP empowers for a lifetime.”

– David Booth, retired civil engineer and founder

Thank you for helping us continually make a difference in so many people’s lives by supporting our small business.

With loving gratitude,

Donna & the Betty B. Family

**UPDATE** We raised $1603 thanks to all of you who were a part of this. Thank you to all of you who “shopped for a cause” this Thanksgiving Weekend!? We are beyond grateful to know just how much this will help these people who are getting a second chance at life after being isolated and forgotten for over three decades! 

This short video provides a glimpse of Bali and East Bali Poverty Project.

This powerpoint presentation charts the progress EBPP has made since help arrived in 1998. This is so inspiring! East Bali Poverty Project Progress Report 1998 – 2016

“What we spend, we lose.
What we keep will be left for others.
What we give away will be ours forever.” 
― David McGee

But for others, you may have only recently been welcomed into our Ocean Ohana– and the purpose of why we continue to root the other half of our business in Bali is nothing more than an exotic, elusive anecdote.

Below is the latest from David’s Blog that chronicles our recent visit and a bit of history about a cause organization called the East Bali Poverty Project– which you, as a supporter of Betty Belts– directly impacts in a positive, powerful way each time you visit our shop, and leave with Betty B. treasure.

Please note that in lieu of Black Friday, we do every year what we call “Bright Friday”. Its one of our many Cause Days we do throughout the year. This year, we will be donating 20% of all gross sales on the website and in the Ventura shop to East Bali Poverty Project.

East Bali Poverty Project: Field Notes

The February 1963 to January 1964 eruption of Gunung Agung, Indonesia’s largest and most devastating eruption of the twentieth century, was a multi-phase explosive and effusive event that produced both basaltic andesite tephra and andesite lava. A rather unusual eruption sequence with an early lava flow followed by two explosive phases. (Research Gate)

Imagine living in a jungle on the slopes of a massive mountain. Your village is composed of several small huts nestled within densely vegetated terrain. Life flows in the tempo of your mountain culture, and is different from that of the people who live far below you, along the shores of a sapphire blue sea, which surrounds your lush green island.

One day the earth explodes and your home becomes a death temple. For a year, each day is filled with the ear shattering roar of a volcano, and convulsive, violent, earth, and atmospheric upheaval. You have no car or easy transport, just feet. Weathering the storm for a year, eventually the battle between earth and sky settles, and quiet returns. The island thinks you and your village are dead. “How could anyone have survived that?”

Government finds and relocates some survivors, but not you and yours. They do not know about your village.

Times on the mountain though better than during the eruption, are now hard. Your village is sick all of the time. People come and go, being born and dying in short order.

Years later a funny man, tall and white, shows up on the mountain. He leaves. But then comes back. And he keeps coming, bringing others. Roads are built, new ways of farming introduced. Schools and many other things, he starts. And life slowly begins to look better when people are born on the mountain.

I first met David Booth, founder of East Bali Poverty Project through my girlfriend at the time, Donna Von Hoesslin’s efforts. Donna was working with the Balinese in creating the product line for her young company, Betty Belts. She was compelled to do something via her growing organization, to give back to Bali.

We had been put in touch with Linda Garland, a British Expat whose innovative design work work on Bali, and her history within the music business, had made her famous, well loved, and connected on this beautiful developing island. She told us about David Booth saying (paraphrased): “If you want to help Bali, talk to David about his project.”

We did, and were impressed to help. The plan was to tell people about EBPP and the work, and invite them to donate and in process join in on what I describe as a “sustainability mission” for Bali.

In short order, Donna had proposed to Yvonne Chouinard’s environmental NGO, 1 Percent for the Planet, that EBPP be considered, because in spite of it being largely Humanitarian in nature, the core concepts would create a better, cleaner, more sustainable Bali. 1% agreed, certified the NGO and a percentage of Betty Belts income began to go to the NGO. It was a big shift for 1 Percent for the Planet.

In recent years BB has taken to doing Cause Day sales where 20% of all proceeds go directly to specific vetted causes, like EBPP. What this does, is raise awareness and connect people via their purchases to a solution and Cause that they can feel good about, knowing each dollar does a lot to help a people, a Nation and a Biome. It is a threefer, at the minimum.

We had not been up on the mountain to see what was going on since 2009, and David Booth kindly fit us into his insanely busy schedule. Our friend and long time driver Gusti Made Merta, scooped us up at dawn this week, and we met up with David and his assistant Kommange, and caravanned up mountain from our coastal lodging at Villa L Orange, to the remote office headquarters for EBPP.

As Donna, my son Josh who had flown in to be with us, and I sat at table over Bali coffee, David explained the nuances and shifts which had gone on in the organization since we had last been up. About 20 minutes in and as we were getting ready to head up mountain, a young woman arrived.

David went outside to speak with her and being the proverbial fly on the wall that I am, and always having a camera in hand, I saw her throw her arms around him and say thank you. I watched as David obviously teared up, and inconspicuously shot a couple frames.

As we headed out to the 4×4 we would take up the mountain, David turned to me and said in his unmistakably indelible British accent: “Well that was a bit emotional. She came up to tell me that she was just accepted into the University. She is the first one from the program.”

I wrote this piece which explains in greater detail why EBPP is so unique, in 2009. the blog link is here if you would like to know more. We went there with some of the women who are the driving force behind the company.

The two 4×4’s set out up mountain, and on mostly single track trails, we bounced and jostled our way up towards the clouds. I could not help but notice the big black upholstered chair riding conspicuously, strapped down in the back of the white truck in front of us. At our first stop, about an hour into the ascent we hopped out and I asked about it.

“Is that a gynecological exam table?” David looked at me and said “Yes, it is pap smear day. We take the examination to them, and have a really great female doctor who gets on well with the women.”

The things we take for granted, like access to preventative medical care, are just a narrow slice of the EBPP mission.

And back onto the single track we went, leaving the white truck w exam table behind. An hour later we spotted a few roof tops on a ridge line, and our driver told us that this was the first school we would visit that day. He told us that the land had been hand cleared and excavated, as no earth moving equipment could ever make it up there.

Of course the logistics of the place, being high up on the mountain, complicate everything. Think about pouring a foundation, how that would work. Then there is the hauling in of brick and tiles for walls and roofing. One can understand why these villages still utilize organic building materials. They wear and you replace old decaying with new. But this was a school, a symbol, as well as being a utilitarian structure.

Classes were in session and the teachers invited us in. Artist Rick Russel of Balingup West Aust was at the schools this week, giving Art and painting technique instruction.

Donna was invited into each class where she introduced herself as the designer and head of her company and supporter-donor of EBPP, and we all spent time with the children, as they showed us what they were learning and doing at the school. It was a lot of fun and the level of skill, organizational discipline, social grace displayed by these children, who time had sort of forgotten, was amazing. We easily recognized the cognitive changes that had taken place in them since our last visit in 2009. It was really beautiful!

All too soon we were done, and on to the next school, which was smaller, with fewer students. One thing that I should mention is that most of these kids trek to school, some over a handful of kilometers each day, across mountainous jungle terrain. They are neat, composed, orderly and disciplined. Gives new insight into the old Grandparents saw about walking through the snow storms in winter to go to school in the “old days” in the US. I was impressed in ways I won’t express here. But it mattered a lot to me, what I saw. I could see manifold benefit, and each one was living, breathing and smiling in front of me.

Another hour of uphill jostle in the 4×4 and we were at the second school we were to visit that day. Both Josh and Donna went in to speak to the lone class in session. The kids were in the 13-15 year age range and were studying empowerment for international environments. Heady on point stuff.

Donna spoke on her life’s work and travel history, and took the kids on a trip using the world map, telling them of her history, and even taught them a couple words of German, to accompany the story of her life in Europe. The two words being: “peace” and “love”. Got to hand it to my wife. She knows how to plant seeds.

Soon it was time to head down the mountain, and as the kids waved goodbye, one of the teachers laughed and shouted: “Enjoy your roller coaster ride back down!” We all laughed, and it really was like that, as we picked our way back down to the main mountain HQ for EBPP and met up with David Booth and Rick Russel once more.

So that is another little slice of the things we get to do on Bali, and a look at the work we love so much.

Here is the link to East Bali Poverty Project if you would like to learn more or donate directly.

Here is the link to Betty Belts website. Get on the mailing list for projects and updates and Cause Day events and all of the other very cool things Donna has her company doing.

None of us really enjoys talking about the charitable work too much, because it is always at risk of ginning up the appearance of using the charity to “benefit brand” or “green wash”. None of what we do is even close to being that.

What each of us does in this life will have an affect. The sum total of our lives will only live on in the people we invest in, because they are a continual living resource that carries compassion, love, education and understanding: forward.

I select what I join myself to with a high degree of study, informational input and caution, since time and resources are so precious. I am so glad to have been able to get to see some of the fruit of that series of choices help a little bit. I hope that you might consider doing so as well.

It is a lot of fun, and matters a lot.

My son Josh and I will be cutting together a little video of this jaunt when I return to the office in California. But until then here is a gallery of images. A short cull from our day on the volcano. Click on any of the images to view them larger. Thanks for tagging along!

Aloha nui loa.

“…as long as we stay connected with all of the many, many blessings that water provides, and continue to keep that love in the forefront of our minds and hearts, as long as we remind ourselves to hope, then our stories will help connect others to water and encourage them to do what they can to help care for this beautiful Blue Marble world.”  – Dr. Wallace J. Nichols”

Water — the life giving element that only we on Planet Earth can enjoy for both pure pleasure and essential survival. It’s the essence and beauty of water that keeps our Betty B. community around the world connected from shore to distant shore.

From this deep understanding of the impact that our precious waters have on our lives, we hope to help create a wave of awareness that you’ll  ride with us.

In support of Blue Mind Life, Betty Belts is participating in the Deep Blue Seven challenge. It’s our contribution to furthering the  revolutionary work of our dear and deeply respected friend,  Dr.Wallace J. Nichols.

Go Deeper: The Seven Ages of Water, is the follow-up book to Blue Mind— a book that, “has the power to reveal how your health and happiness are tied to the oceans and waterways…” says Dr. Sylvia Earl, Explorer for the National Geographic.

Through this challenge, we’re asking for a swell of support by contributing to the Go Deeper Patreon campaign. With your donations, you’ll also be supporting a 1% for the planet cause that is making a true and profound difference.

To sweeten up the crowdfund support, we’re offering rad thank you gifts from both Betty Belts and The Ocean Room Gallery including a $20 Betty B. gift certificate to each donor who joins the Go Deeper Patreon at the $20 or more monthly level – and the first person who pledges $50 or more monthly, gets a custom signed 12×18 inch David Pu’u Photography-Cinematography print of their choice from our Ocean Room Gallery, valued at $280.00.

See and learn more— please consider joining the movement at ANY level, even just $1 monthly to simply give from your loving heart heart, and to Go Deeper.

Thank you for reading this, your precious attention is greatly appreciated.

With Deep Gratitude,

Donna, David and the Betty Belts Team

Bali is changing.

Fast.

I’ve been coming here for 12 years since starting Betty Belts in 2003 and haven’t seen a more rapid metamorphosis, well,…  ever. Not that things aren’t changing rapidly at home, but it somehow seems more obvious here. And, honestly, as exciting as it is, I find it a bit sad.

Today we visited a surf break we’ve been coming to for many years that was a lonely and beautiful wave paradise for a long time. I arrived and saw the large crowd in the water, the vendors, the cars all lined up along the road… it had become a global surf destination. I was so saddened by the transformation that had taken place, that I lost all desire to paddle out. Just an example of what this looks like: we heard stories of surf guides from down the coast brazenly bringing hordes of surf tourists to the spot. Some of them charge their clients based on wave count, which they would help them obtain by often aggressive methods in the lineup. The friction has been ongoing, police needed to be involved and the result is that the locals have implemented a policy of Locals Only Sundays which seems like it’s going to work.

Property values are skyrocketing at an unsustainable rate for the Balinese as people from around the world attempt to snatch up their own piece of paradise.

But Bali continues to enchant. If you know where to look. The smiles don’t come as readily as they used to… there is a certain amount of uneasiness that seems to exist now, and it wasn’t there before, not like this. The unique culture here that is rooted in gratitude is the framework that holds it all together, and makes for a type of spiritual sustainability.

Don’t let go, Bali. Please, don’t let go.

Here is the first video clip David put together for this trip with music from friends we met along the way here, Markus and Adina.  More to come.

Betty B. Insider: Holiday 2013

The “sunset season” here in Ventura gives us phenomenal views from the shop!

 

One of the many what I always call “guilt-free gift wrap” options at the shop. Everything we use is selected for recycled content, biodegradability, sustainability, re-usability and, of course, adorability!