Help a Family Survive Today and Thrive Tomorrow
Exhale Skin Studio and Pokot Now are teaming up this holiday season to raise much needed funds for villages in Pokot, Africa.
Rick Strickland and his wife Mary are dear family friends to me (Jessica) and truly are more family than friends. Rick is the man with the plan and in 2008, I was lucky enough to accompany Rick to Kenya. The trip changed my world view, the way I give and how I teach my children.
The short of it is that people are starving. Children are sick, their parents are dying and it feels like an insurmountable issue. So. We at Exhale, along with you, the best clients in the world, are going to tackle what we can. We want to raise enough money to feed a village for a year. It sounds like a lot, but its only $6,000 (or equal to one trip to Costco).
Exhale will match your gift!
We made this website solely to show you the work that Rick and Mary are doing and to explain where your money goes while giving you peace of mind when sharing your hard earned funds. The pictures are from Rick’s film roll and tell the story of his years in Pokot.
Please scroll through for pictures, a short video and a few stories and allow yourself to understand the incredible impact your gift will have.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
Jessica in Bungoma, Kenya in 2008
Every family deserves food on the table, clean water, medicine, and the means to provide for tomorrow.
The Pokot people live along the Kenya-Uganda border, with many families facing extreme poverty. Access to food, clean water, medicine, and education is scarce, and preventable diseases and malnutrition claim lives far too soon. Through Pokot Now, we’re bringing essential resources, hope, and love to communities in need.
Despite their terrible and heartbreaking circumstances, the Pokot tribes are some of the happiest and grateful people. When Jessica’s kid’s asked what they could help with, Mary polled the children of the village. We were all surprised by the answer: spoons! They wanted a dual utensil to dig and play but also to eat with. Such a small thing brought great joy.
Changing the world is possible. We’ve done it before.
Along with the opportunity to distribute food, Rick and Mary teach the villagers how to plant, harvest and store seeds for the following year. Even with this education, famine and drought still cause people to die every day.
Fun fact: When Jessica was in Kenya, she helped teach the villagers how to plant pili pili- or hot peppers. Rick was able to get a contract with the Europran equivalent of Mace Pepper Spray so when the harvest came, the company came through and purchased the peppers from the people.
Part of Pokot Now’s mission is to help local communities to acquire a baseline of farming in order to help alleviate poverty. It’s the “teach a man to fish..” approach.
WIth Rick and Mary’s guidance, people of Kenya have learned:
organic farming
bee keeping
water irrigation techniques
water well drilling
business marketing
water filtration
crop and water harvesting
