Oouiiii...CUSTOMS

Never have I dealt with customs or had any inkling as to what chaos they can provoke, however today I had that privilege. Anne, Co-Founder of The Village Experience, had recently been working with an organization called The Bombolulu Workshop (www.bombolulu.org).

The Bombolulu Workshop for the Handicapped, located in Mombasa, Kenya, works with some 150 disabled men and women artisans to help them overcome their physical limitations and empower them economically and socially to become fully integrated members of their communities. Bombolulu started in 1969 as a rehabilitation project sponsored by the Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya.

In working with Bombolulu, Anne had helped them design and produce summer dresses, beach totes, summer hats, and bowls. The products were scheduled to arrive to the store before the party on Saturday. Fortunately, Anne had received a call from Tom who said the products had arrived to the US, but were being held by customs. Tom is basically a liaison between TVE and customs. FYI, it's just better to hire someone to deal with the customs then to try and do it yourself. The products are being held by customs because The Bombolulu Workshop failed to sew in the care label in each of the summer hats and beach totes. Apparently, all textile products that are imported into the US need to have a care label. Therefore, in order for TVE to receive the products we had to figure out a way to get a care label that could be sewn into the products.

So, we researched and contacted numerous companies that may correlate or relate to care labels, apparel tags, screen printing, pad printing, alternations, or fabric. After all our research and contacts we ended up with no possible way to buy a care label. Ending up with nothing, we decided we needed to be more creative. It appeared as if we were actually going to have to make our own label since there are no companies in greater Indianapolis that had the resources to do so (FYI--business opportunity in apparel care labels!).

Our idea: buy heat transfer paper and white fabric. In Microsoft Word, Molly created a set of care labels that we printed onto the heat transfer paper, which were then ironed onto the fabric. We then cut the labels out, which will be sewn into the products tomorrow morning at 8am. In order to gain access to the products that are being held by customs, Anne had to photocopy and send all of our passports to them. Before our arrival, customs will have inspected our passports and have run a background check on each of us. Who knew working with customs would be so difficult?



To sum it up, we had to actually create our own care label that will be sewn into the products tomorrow morning in front of the customs officials. If all goes well we should be able to bring the products back to TVE to be set up and merchandised. All I can say is..... ouiiiii vayyyyy customs!!!