Coffee Grounds, Goats, and Soap (A #LiveUnlimited Post)

What does “living unlimited” mean to you?

When the Muscular Dystrophy Association began its 2016 summer campaign, #LiveUnlimited, I shared this picture on social media (which generated $1 from a generous sponsor).

What Does it Mean to #LiveUnlimited?

I loved the ziplining experience at North Georgia Canopy Tours. There was a moment during one of the longer zips that felt spiritual. I was suspended high above a gorge, zipping along rapidly, all thoughts of mundane worries as well as life’s bigger problems stripped away as I flew.

Living Unlimited Is Conceived in Smaller Moments

I have become acquainted with Linda Freeman through my work at Weaving Influence. Every week, I help share her blog posts on social media. With every post (as well as our phone conversations and emails), I see her take something common as a starting point and nurture it into something BIG. Here are three examples:

Goats

Linda is incorporating goats into her work with the Kratie Province in Cambodia in several ways. She and her team are working to start a Goat Bank. Selected province families will receive goats to use for milk, and as the goats reproduce, they will donate a kid back to the bank to perpetuate the availability of goats for their fellow province residents. It’s not just the goat bank, though. There is the possibility of a biogas digester using goat and human waste, as well as lots of goat milk to be made into organic body products.

Leftover Coffee Grounds 

Did you know you can incorporate leftover coffee grounds into facial scrubs? I didn’t either until Linda and her KidPower Organics line started including them in their Vanilla Latte Coffee Scrub. (Linda has also shown the Kratie Province residents how to utilize used coffee grounds to help plants grow.)

Clean Water and Two Hands

According to the CDC, handwashing with soap could protect about 1 out of every 3 young children who get sick with diarrhea and almost 1 out of 5 young children with respiratory infections like pneumonia. Linda provides more details about why it works in  this post. With her KidPower Handwashing Project, she explains how ambassadors will be appointed and trained from within the community. They will receive small stipends via the sales of Kid Power Organics as well as private donations to Cambodian Care.

Goats, coffee grounds, water. So simple, yet with such profound potential. These are three of Linda’s team’s projects, but the list is lengthy. There are

• KidPower2015 with its bicycle generators and impact on families affected by incarceration through Children of Inmates
• The NeighborhoodHELP program with its medical outreach in underserved communities which brings the household-based framework to life
• The Future Ready program in Miami Dade County which uses an evidence-based campaign to help junior high and high school students understand the consequences associated with at-risk behaviors that lead to HIV/AIDS, STDs, and teen pregnancy.

How Can YOU Live Unlimited?

I hope Linda’s story has demonstrated how living unlimited isn’t always about something as daring as ziplining. Sometimes it is as daring as overcoming your own doubts and those of others to turn something common, like a scoop of coffee grounds, a cup of goat milk, or soap and water into a life saving gift of unlimited proportions!

Any time you reach beyond your limits — whether they have been set by someone around you or yourself — you are achieving a #LiveUnlimited moment. #LiveUnlimited moments come in all sizes, big and small. Yet, what unites them is that we all face limits, and we all have the power to break free of our limits. ~ MDA’s #LiveUnlimited Campaign

I am sending Linda this #LiveUnlimited bracelet to celebrate the ways she demonstrates the #LiveUnlimited principle. She may choose to keep it for herself or pass it along to someone else who needs encouragement, maybe to one of the many girls she has encouraged along the way.

How can you incorporate the #LiveUnlimited idea into your life? If Linda can do it with coffee grounds, I’m guessing you can do it with something right at your fingertips or with some seed of an idea that has been aching to take root and thrive!

Children in Kratie Province Cambodia

The #LiveUnlimited Bracelet and Campaign

If you would like your own  #LiveUnlimited Bracelet, you can purchase it by clicking here. $6 from the sale of each bracelet goes directly to the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

If you would like to participate in the MDA #LiveUnlimited campaign, you can:

• Created a custom graphic (like my ziplining picture above). For every #LiveUnlimited custom graphic shared, $1 will be donated to MDA. Click here to create yours!
• Keep up with MDA and the campaign on Twitter at @MDAnews, @EndorphnWarrior, and the hashtag #LiveUnlimited
• Visit MDA on Facebook by clicking here
• Follow MDA and the campaign by visiting this Instagram account and using the hashtag #LiveUnlimited
• Purchase a #LiveUnlimited tshirt by clicking here ($7 from each sale goes to MDA)

I was given a #LiveUnlimited bracelet for myself and one to give away to someone who inspires me. All opinions are my own, especially about the coffee grounds, because coffee rocks. 

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.