Hilary Hambrick Taft
Hilary Hambrick Taft
Guatemala 2013-2014
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I am volunteering at the Monte Cristo Center in Chimaltenango, Guatemala. This family-run community development center provides education, healthcare, & vocational training to the surrounding community. I will assist with teaching English and computer literacy as well as possibly working on a micro-loan fund for local farmers. Read More About Hilary →

Updates on Queen Bee

We’re super excited because last week we ordered over 700 metal containers for our first major run of Queen Bee products. This week we also had a training workshop with CEMOC’s leadership to teach them how to make the product and brainstorm solutions to some of our biggest problems.

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Right now one of our biggest challenges is getting all of our primary ingredients sourced here in Guatemala; products such as coconut oil, avocado oil, and coco butter. Our other big challenge is figuring out how to cheaply import our beautiful product containers. Although we don’t have any definite answers to these issues yet, we’re proud to have a brilliant team here at CEMOC that is skilled to tackle problems such as marketing, engineering, and sales.

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As you can see, here in Guatemala alot of “mom and pop” companies are producing natural cosmetic products, but not with alot of luxury or up-scale marketing.

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Our vision is to be a high-quality, all-natural cosmetics company with a social purpose. We hope that as we expand the brand we’ll be able to train mothers in the Monte Cristo community to make Queen Bee as a way to earn income for their families and go toward their children’s education.

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All in all, we still have alot to get off the ground before Eric & I head out in September, but we’re making some serious progress. Please be thinking of alternatives to our sourcing and importing challenges- we would love any ideas you may have to offer! Also, keep an eye out for our Queen Bee Facebook page which we hope to have up and running in the next few weeks!

Also- I celebrated my 23rd birthday last week! I was super honored by my sweet students when they sang to me and gave me flowers to celebrate my special day.

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