Dal LaMagna, CEO of our loan recipient, IceStone, traveled to Iraq and Jordan in 2006 to try to negotiate a cease-fire between Iraqi insurgents and the Coalition Forces – alone! I wrote about IceStone in the last UnTours Eurozine, and my colleague, Ellen Peters, spotted Dal’s name and told me she heard his amazing diplomacy…
Our interest in sustainable energy led us in 2005 to ground-breaking work taking place on various Indian Reservations in South Dakota. Hal, foundation board member Mary LeFever, and UnTourists/foundation donors Rod and Shirley DePue visited some of this work in 2006. Their hosts included Patrick Spears, a leader in various capacities including former tribal chairman….
At my house, we park our shoes at the door to reduce our carbon footprints since we don’t have to vacuum as much. Not! It is true that the house stays cleaner and we don’t have to vacuum as often with the shoes-at-door-practice, but the truth is we just don’t like to clean and therefore…
Here’s a recent photo of Hal and Norma with visiting and love-bestowing UnTourist, Chris Farrow-Noble. One of the many great things about being at the UnTours Foundation is the amount of mail we receive with kind words and good old fashion love. Sometimes it’s a few hand written words in the margin of a formal…
Photo by Traci Todd When I hear anything about the Queen, including news of her Diamond Jubilee, I think of my British friend explaining to me that the Queen’s laundry is ALWAYS hung on a line and never put in a clothes dryer. “Only renters in Britain use clothes dryers, and the poor dears have…
This week, Hal headed back to Springfield High School, where he taught American Studies in the 1Elizabethkillough0’s while working on his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania. He was one of 19 this year inducted into the school’s Achievers Hall of Fame. We were told that Hal could have up to 15 words describing his…
Kent Davidson is a member of the Media Borough Council, the government body that passed the resolution in 2006 making Media, PA, the First Fair Trade Town in the US. Citizens of Media, including our own beloved Hal, have traveled to international Fair Trade events and cooperatives in the past, but Kent’s recent travels mark…
Bob Seiwell is forever shaking his head while smiling as he sits at UnTours Foundation board meetings. It’s not that we don’t follow the law, it’s more that Hal is guided by an internal compass while the law is something that just doen’t enter his mind — ever! Many of us are inspired to follow…
Former UnTours staff member, Fran Douglas, is the peanut butter between Foundation donors Chris Noble and Chris Farrow-Noble. They are in front of our “upside-down” world map. ……..do you even want to visit your travel company? And where else does your travel staff person come out of retirement to greet and hug you? Only at…
When a cocoa farmer visited from Ghana, she told us how the men had to do more work under the Fair Trade system. Before Fair Trade, women and children harvested the cocoa while many men saw their roles as selling the cocoa and controlling the funds from the cocoa sales. With Fair Trade, children go…