A virtual cottage meeting in August included members from several cottages. Big Ocean leaders added their thoughts and encouragement. Each attendee came away with a better understanding of the challenges women face and that many of these challenges are magnified by COVID-19. Not only did these women increase their knowledge, they found wisdom to help…
Nyachangkuoth Rambang Tai, also known as Tai, is the cottage president of the South Sudan Cottage. She recently shared how the donations from Big Ocean Women made an important start in lifting and caring for women and their families there. With painstaking care, Tai itemized the purchases made, accounting for all the funds. Can you…
This week we ordered oranges to support our local scouts. We had ordered them a few months ago and they were wonderful. We were surprised this time that most of the oranges were more green than orange. When I shop for oranges, I tend to choose the ones with the deepest orange skin. Out of…
This month’s tenet focuses on choices and their consequences, so I’ve paid close attention to this subject all month. Conditions in the world, our community, and my heart provided ample food for thought. For me, the answer to correctly exercising our freedom to choose boils down to Cinderella’s mantra, “have courage and be kind,” from…
The seeds for the new cottage in Ecuador were planted in 2016 when Big Ocean representatives attended Habitat III there. Vilma Sagebin saw Ana Carolina Gualinga Cuji (also called Anita) and her friend enter a Big Ocean Women presentation and offered to translate for them. When she sensed their uneasiness as the hour grew late,…
Vilma Sagebin had an up-close and personal view of Big Ocean’s beginnings through her daughter and our founder, Carolina Allen. Carolina had returned from attending a funeral in Hawaii where an experience made her conclude she must do something about the current negative trends and their influence on the rising generation. She told Vilma she…
Like nearly everything related to Big Ocean Women, the newly formed St. George, Utah cottage began with one person inviting friends to attend a Big Ocean meeting or activity. Cathy Mauluulu, a cottage leader and committee member and a close friend of Gloria Boberg, encouraged her and Allison Stingley to attend the U.N. Civil Society…
In February, Sandra Ahlquist planned a May 1 celebration marking her retirement after 40 years as the owner, teacher, and driving force of Aunt Sands’ Preschool. Instead, like nearly everything else this spring, COVID-19 rewrote the script. The school closed its doors forever in March, but its legacy will live on through the truths she…
We started the Cottage Industry feature last year to highlight the “industry” or work done in our various cottages. Cottages, for those new to Big Ocean, are groups of women who gather in their neighborhoods to inspire, inform, stand, serve, and report as they support each other in their maternal feminist beliefs. This month we…
Currents of hope and gratitude burst from our authors’ pens this month, Norma notes. Yes, Current events are especially troublesome. We women who carry our entire world wherever we go may naturally feel weighed down as we face COVID-19 with its many ramifications. There is no denying it has brought chaos to our lives–physically, socially,…