As we make this blog post, Darlene and Diane, the dynamic duo at the helm of GreenHouse17, are on their way to Las Vegas to spread some of our shared Appalachian spirit at The Gathering 2014, this year’s national Paul Mitchell conference. Here is an excerpt from a reflection written by Amber, our summer intern, while joining with stipend participants in the production of our Handmade by Survivors products for sale during the big event:

The last few weeks have been a really fun and exciting process of creating beautifully scented value-added products…It’s such a beautiful process of stirring up the oils and creating a tincture with the wonderfully smelly, healing herbs and then drip, dripping them into the tins all with lovely ladies from the home and fun conversation…

We produced over a thousand of those little tins of lip balms and salves during that period of time and I got to see the skill level and job satisfaction that it gave to the ladies that chose to work alongside us staff…

The attractive label that we put on top really says it all too: “Salve-ation” and “Reclaim Calm”. Trust me, you smell this stuff and that’s what happens, you put it on and that skin of yours just thanks you for the rest of the day.

It’s a wonderful skill to learn, being able to put to use plants in your garden for something that is so good for your body as well as for your mind and soul, which we all know flowers are really good for anyway.

We can’t thank our friends at Grow Appalachia and JP’s Peace Love & Happiness Foundation enough for this experience.  Your support, guidance, and encouragement are invaluable! We’ll be posting updates from Vegas on our Facebook page and Twitter feed next week. Hope you’ll stay tuned.