Today’s Gift Idea: Mosey Bags!

For that “green gal” on your list, these bags are made from recycled bottles, so she can look fabulous while respecting the environment! Lots of styles and colors! $65-$138.

A Benefit for the Siteman Cancer Center

Join us to benefit the Siteman Cancer Center on Wednesday June 29th. Receive 10% off all merchandise and we will donate 15% of our sales that day to the Siteman Cancer Center. From 5-7pm enjoy wine and a free gift with purchase. Can’t wait to see you there!

Ivy Hill/Rung

Through the month of February Ivy Hill has partnered up with the non-profit resale boutique Rung. We are so excited about this since it means a great discount to our customers while we all get to help this great organization.

What do you have to do? Just bring in on-trend, in-season handbags, jewelry, scarves, and accessories in to Ivy Hill to receive 15% off one item.

Ivy Hill will pass on these item donations to Rung which will aid them in their mission of  offering affordable professional attire to women in the Saint Louis area. As part of Rung’s mission of women helping women, they donate 100% of their net profits to the Women’s Foundation of Greater St. Louis in support of local women’s charities.

So come on ladies! Help us out and bring in your gently used items today to receive your discount!

Sip n’ See

Don’t miss our Sip n’ See event on November 18th – it’s a great reason to enjoy a glass of wine and preview the seasons hottest looks! And remember, 20% of the day’s proceeds will be donated to Children’s Hospital St. Louis.

Dine-Out this month to give back to Nest

Ivy Hill ♥’s Nest!

Not only was it founded here in St. Louis by Rebecca Kousky, I am a proud board member of the St. Louis chapter. It’s amazing to see how Nest has grown and how we are making a real impact in the lives of these women.

Help us help Nest by dining out on any (or all Tuesdays) this month. St. Louis restaurants have generously agreed to donate at least 15% of their sales from these lunches or dinners to Nest. So, grab a friend or a group of friends and make a plan to have dinner while helping women around the world.

Participating restaurants are listed below. Find more info on the nest website at http://www.buildanest.com/joinus.asp#54

Sept. 14th
Robust 6 – 9 pm
Katie’s Pizzeria Cafe 6 – 9 pm
Nora’s 12 – 2 pm
Araka (dinner) 

Sept. 21st
Sasha’s Wine Bar 6 – 9 pm
Sasha’s on Shaw 6 – 9 pm
Nora’s 12 – 2 pm
 
Sept. 28th
One 19 North Tapas & Wine Bar 6 – 9 pm
Sub Zero 6 – 9 pm 
Snarf’s 12 – 2 pm 
Nora’s 12 – 2 pm
Dewey’s Pizza (u. city) 6 – 9 pm

Nest empowers women all over the world and they have touched so many people lives, like Fatima pictured here.  She is part of the Nest communities in Morocco which has a wide variety of skills in the textile arts. In Khenifra the women are button makers, in Midelt they are rug weavers, and in Tigmijjou they use water reeds for basket weaving. Each cooperative provides the workers an opportunity to further refine their products and thus appeal to a broader spectrum of markets.

This is Fatima’s third child and all 6 of her family members now share one tiny room in the town of Midelt, just at the base of the Atlas Mountains. Fatima is a Muslim woman and, as such, was not allowed to take interest-bearing loans so Nest represented her only option for loans and support.

By doing these small things, like dining out this September to help Nest, you are helping real women with real families and real needs. You are helping Fatima and her newest addition.

I hope to see you there!

Wash U and SLU Event at Ivy Hill

You’re Invited to a “Give and Receive” shopping event

to benefit the ScholarShop

The Holidays are a great way to give back to your community, and Ivy Hill has made it simple and rewarding. Stop by Ivy Hill and bring your gently worn items which Ivy Hill will donate to a local favorite, the Scholarshop. Scholarshop is an upscale used clothing store in Clayton. A percentage of every purchase is donated to the Scholarshop Foundation of St. Louis, an organization that gives interest-free loans to local students.

Give and Receive Holiday Shopping Event

Saturday, December 5th

10.30am to 7:00pm

Bring
in
1
gently
worn
item
to
Ivy
Hill
and
drop
in
the
donation
box
and
Receive
10%
off

Bring
in
2
gently
worn
items
to
Ivy
Hill
and
drop
in
the
donation
box
and
Receive
20%
off

Happy
Shopping!

Ivy Hill + Nest Event

Evening to benefit COCA

“Dine Out” to benefit Children’s Hospital

Eat, Drink & Shop to benefit Children’s Hospital Date: Wed. April 15th Place: Central West End Time: Ivy Hill, 5pm-8pm Sub Zero: 5pm – ?? Please join Sub Zero and Ivy Hill for this fabulous evening. We, along with other participating restaurants will donate 15% of the proceeds for the evening to Children’s Hospital. This event is especially great becuase it doesn’t cost YOU any additional money. Just grab some friends, show up to eat, drink, or shop and you will contribute to Children’s Hospital.   We hope to see you all there!! Sincerely,   Hillary, Ivy Hill

Toasted Rav.com Features Nest

St. Louis Social Entrepreneur Crafts Brighter Futures Around the World

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replying the story in its archived form does not constitute a re-publiccation of the story.

Rebecca Kousky, a 26 year old St. Louis native, thoughtfully stares at her computer screen and types with a calm confidence. She glances up to apologize, the website that is the foundation of her not-for-profit fashion and micro-lending organization, Nest, is having a few issues. A few seconds later she closes her laptop and looks up with a sparkle in her eye and a warm smile. I met Rebecca over a cup of coffee to talk about Nest’s mission and the programs she has set up to help women artists in eight countries around the world.

A Burroughs graduate, Rebecca earned her Masters degree in Social Work from Wash U in 2006 and one month later started Nest. The organization has developed a system that provides interest free, microloans to women artists in developing countries. Through Nest, women in places like Tanzania and India request small loans for tools related to their business and can choose to repay their debt through products that are sold in boutiques and stores around the United States, such as Ivy Hill in the CWE and Whole Foods in Brentwood, as well as on Nest’s website, or they can choose to repay the loan with cash. “I really wanted to find a way to combine my love of fashion and art and design with my call to social work. And this was sort of a way to combine the two,” Rebecca explains.

To raise money for the program, designers and artists in the United States who partner with Nest donate 25% of the proceeds from the sale of specific products to the organization. Retta Leritz DiFate, a St. Louis based illustrator and designer, is one of the many designers who has volunteered to partner with Nest. A portion of the sales from her wrapping paper collection, “Lemon” go directly to Nest’s microlending program. Everything from paper to clothing to bath salts handcrafted by these domestic design partners are sold on the artists sites, Nest’s website, and in stores around the country.

In only a two and a half years Nest has grown rapidly, due in part to the hard work and dedication of volunteers and board members but also because of Rebecca’s enthusiasm for the project. Nest started in St. Louis with a small board of directors that was made up of mostly family members and remains firmly rooted here. Rebecca explained, “Now it’s morphed. We have a board in St. Louis, which is our main board… and then we have advisory boards in seven other cities, like New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and D.C. So we have probably 80 board members nationally.” Using this momentum, Rebecca would like to see Nest expand into more places and begin programs for business education to support the women who become involved in the program. “We could grow into a hundred more countries. All of the women, once they have gone through our program can also apply again. So we are also in these women’s lives for a really long time, I hope.”

“I think the timing is good. I think especially with the economy people really care where their money is going. You see a huge push towards green products and organic and local. All of these people are tracking where they’re spending their money… I think that [people] want that local connection and they want to be supporting people that are doing good work… The country is sort of doing a mind shift and we are trying to look at our values as a country,” Rebecca said, and judging by the quick growth and success of her idea it seems like she may be right.