Holland Festival

My husband and I are from Dutch-Indonesian heritage, thus the connection to our involvement in Indonesia. It is actually an amazing story, our background. Perhaps in my next few blogs I'll touch more on that subject. For now, suffice it to say that our parents knew each other in the "old country" of Indonesia. And both our families relocated to The Netherlands (or Holland, as it is informally called) where it is that I was born, thus our connection to the Holland Festival.

Every year in Long Beach, California, the Dutch-Indonesian community gathers for special a day, always on the Sunday before Memorial Day, to celebrate our culture with a day in the park with lots of food, music, friends and family. And this year was no exception.









People came from across the country for this amazing day.








The weather was exceptional, probably the most perfect weather anyone could ever ask for, and the day was filled with wonderful aromas from the food (LONG, LONG LINES)....
can anyone say, "SATE?"












....fun music from bands of the older and the newer generations....









....children had fun in the bouncy houses and with the "bubble guy"...








....and there was a larger attendance of family and friends than I had seen in a very long time.











Laga Handbags participated in this event as a vendor as we we've done in years past.














It has been great to see the support for our work in Indonesia grow from year to year, and how our Dutch-Indonesian community of friends have really come alongside our efforts. We had a record number of sales this year, and many of our past supporters came out once again to see us, visit with us and make yet another purchase in support of the people of Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia.

As the day progressed, it was a blessing to be able to tell the Laga story to those who hadn't yet heard it, to share with them that the people of Aceh are so blessed to know that Americans love their traditional embroidered handbags we are bringing to them and to know that our hard work gives them hope for a better tomorrow.

We spent time with old friends, met some wonderful new ones, had special family time, and all-in-all had a wonderful day in the beautiful California sunshine.









But I would be remiss by not taking the time to mention two people who have been absolutely amazing in their continued support of Laga:

Henk and Louise Bauwin, or OH and TL, as I like to call them...










(shown here with TL's favorite show NCIS' "Abby" - Pauley Perrette)

As they've done many, many times before, they came out very early in the morning, helped us set up our booth and helped sell our handbags all day long.









And if that wasn't enough, and because Roy and I had to leave early to attend a wedding for one of our Laga Consultants, they single-handedly (well, technically double-handedly) tore down our entire booth and brought "lock, stock and barrel" back to our house in Irvine when it was all said and done.

They are two young-at-heart individuals and definitely an inspiration to the older generation and to us all: they have two children, five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren, and will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary next year. Seriously, if it wasn't for these two beautiful and dedicated "Indos," there is no way we could accomplish everything we do. We love you OH and TL!

Holland Festival 2010 was a great success and a great day for everyone who was there, and really relaxing for some!









Thank you to all of you who came out to support Laga, and for giving of yourselves and your time and resources to partner with us as we continue to help the people of Aceh!

We love you all!