The last four months of doing business as Gerard Aflague Collection has been positive – overall. We’ve attended three large island-themed public events in California and Colorado, are working with Faith Bookstore in Guam to retail our products, and have served customers online from Guam, Saipan, throughout the mainland, as well as Germany and Japan.

We look forward to networking with more folks…with a wider audience. We are doing just that. We’ve begun working with the Facebook group 671 Recipes to connect with over 20,000 subscribers to spread the word about our work, and we are working with smaller stateside contacts who retail their goods at local events all across the mainland. We see our efforts to connect being nothing but a positive experience.

We’ve seen what the power of social media can do in terms of connecting us. We’ve been very encouraged by many folks who have mentioned that we are doing a good thing by creating beautiful things that personify our pacific island lifestyle, culture, and heritage. But we wanted to do more. We began to offer inspirational products. But this still wasn’t enough in our minds.

As we thought about what we were doing, we asked ourselves how hard would it be to give back a small percentage of our sales or in-kind donations to help the homeless situation in Guam. So we entered into conversations with the Salvation Army in Guam and came to understand the connection between drug addiction and homelessness. While they receive grant funding for their efforts, they could always use the extra help from other sources.

So starting in mid-August, we will be donating a portion of our sales to the Salvation Army in Guam to assist the homeless. We are happy that they were receptive to our call. We hope that giving back to our island home in our small way will bring about some value to their great efforts to support our island home and its people.

Si Yu’os Ma’ase.