Thistle Farms In Atlanta

Thistle Farms products are found in over 200 stores across the US, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom.  We are inviting our friends in the Atlanta market to get more involved and find their personal connection with the women and products of Thistle Farms.

Credit:  Atlanta Neighborhoods

Why Atlanta?

The bath and body products of Thistle Farms are handmade by the women of Magdalene, a two-year residential community located in Nashville, but serving women from all over the Southeast.  The women who have survived lives of trafficking, violence, and addiction were victims, long before they ever saw the inside of prison walls -- victims of abuse and a culture that can turn a blind eye to social injustice. The universal issues of violence are borne on the individual backs of women, and it will take entire communities from around the country to change a culture that still buys and sells women.  

The prevalence of trafficking and prostitution of women in Atlanta is one of the highest in the nation. We are deeply grateful that Atlanta has welcomed the women of Magdalene and Thistle Farms into its churches and into the Whole Foods Market. Now it is our turn to express our gratitude by deepening that connection.  We hope that by our increased presence in Atlanta we can share the beautiful truth that love is more powerful than all the forces that drive women to the streets. 

We are compelled to fulfill our mission by the urgency of one hundred women on our waiting list. Selling Thistle Farms products and sharing our story with a wider community in Atlanta will not only allow more women to enter the sanctuary of Magdalene, but hopefully inspire more communities to create their own residential space for healing. We are asking to become partners with the common pursuit of women’s freedom as we launch an effort to strengthen our presence in Atlanta. By deepening our friendship and with the purchase of every Thistle Farms product, we believe that united we can have a greater impact on change that will bring hope and healing to women in Nashville, Atlanta and beyond.

How can you help?

1. “Like” Thistle Farms Atlanta Supporters on your Facebook page. Stay updated with Atlanta-specific events and deals and connect to other Atlanta supporters. Learn about the issues of human trafficking and prostitution in the Atlanta area, and be connected to organizations helping those affected. Visit us HERE.

2.  Purchase Thistle Farms products at Whole Foods.  Seven Whole Foods stores in the Atlanta area are selling our products now. In order to support the program’s presence in Atlanta, we need you to buy our products and spread the story of Magdalene and Thistle Farms. See the “Contact” tab on Facebook for a map of locations.

3. Invite our founder, Becca Stevens, to come speak at an event to your organization or congregation. Learn about the story behind the Magdalene program and hear Becca’s motivation for spreading the ministry of Magdalene and Thistle Farms.  Contact tim@thistlefarms.org for more information.

4. Host a Thistle Farms party. Invite your friends over to hear the story of Thistle Farms and have the opportunity to test and buy the products.  Contact events@thistlefarms.org to discuss details.

5. Make a donation to Thistle Farms. Your donations and support are what keep the doors open. Click on our "Donate" page on our website.

6. Start an organization like Magdalene in Atlanta. Channel your entrepreneurial skills and passion for social justice to create a haven for women on the streets in Atlanta. Contact deb@thistlefarms.org to learn about our education programs.

See you in Atlanta!

Meet Yolanda

Yolonda is a mother, sister, daughter, friend and active agent of change for her community. She grew up in Nashville with three sisters and two brothers. Yolonda began experimenting with drugs while she was a teenager and eventually became addicted. She spent approximately twenty years in the throws of addiction in spite of several attempts to get clean including going "cold turkey" through the birth of her son. She believe that Magdalene is helping her find a way out. She learned about Magdalene through her best friend who works as a resident manager. After entering the program, Yolanda discovered that love heals, and through sharing her struggles and triumphs with her sisters in the program, she has found healing. Yolonda said that Magdalene finally helped her realize a profound truth: “It wasn’t just the drugs. I had some deep core issues to work on.”

When asked what she has learned during her recovery, Yolonda says that Magdalene and Thistle Farms have taught her the principles of hospitality and living a life free of judgment towards oneself and others. After being in the program for 18 months, Yolonda was able to move out and start on a new path as an affiliate of the program. Yolonda now calls Thistle Farms her safe haven and comes to work everyday with a healthy respect for authority and a great sense of pleasure in working on a team to achieve common goals. She has moved up from manufacturing and now works in the shipping department. Ever-willing to step up, Yolanda says that there is still so much work to be done and believes “there’s no time to be tired” when one is devoted to the work of love, healing, and building community. With a warmhearted smile, she concludes that is indeed better to give than receive.

Always a Thistle Farmer, Yolonda recommends the Tea Tree Shower Gel to anyone interested in Thistle Farms products. She says, “It’s such a clean refreshing feeling after I use the tea tree shower gel. I step out of the shower and start singing.”

And A Happy New Year!

Counting blessings,

and saying prayers for the New Year.

 

It has been wet and cold in Nashville over the holidays. This weather magnifies for every person the gratitude we all  feel for warm, safe beds and cozy hearths. Magdalene offers residential sanctuary for 28 women who speak eloquently about what it means to have a place to call home after surviving the underside of bridges, the backside of abandoned houses, and the inside of prison. It's always sobering to remember that on the eve of 2012, there are over a hundred more women wanting to come live in this community.  

On the final day of Thistle Farms before the holidays, employees offered up the following prayers:

 

- For those still on the streets who don’t get to appreciate the beauty of this time of year

- For the women sleeping behind a brick wall this Christmas

- For those that don’t know the hope in this place and the love in this circle

- For those walking the streets that can’t find their way

- For the family I haven’t seen in three years

- For my sister I haven’t seen in a year and gratitude that we get to spend Christmas together

- Thank you for giving Becca this vision

- Thank you for loving me regardless of my past, and for teaching me to love myself

 

Thank you for being a part of this work.

 

Because Magdalene and Thistle Farms do not take any government funding, your gifts keep our doors open (and the heat on), year after year. We are thankful for all the ways the work is supported by buying candles and body balms, by telling a friend about the mission of Magdalene, by hosting a home party, by inviting Thistle Farms to speak at a church, by collecting thistles, and by make financial gifts. Thank you for all the ways you give.

With much love and gratitude from all the women

of Magdalene and Thistle Farms.

Happy New Year!

Signs of Christmas

This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ -- Luke 2

Early one morning last week under a drizzle and a thick blanket of fog, I headed off to Radnor Lake for a moment of peace from the busiest Advent I have known at Thistle Farms and St. Augustine's. There, perched on a low branch beside the lake was a majestic bald eagle. I know they roost in the foothills of Tennessee, but seeing it watching me 20 feet away was still startling. It was a sign to me, as clear as if I had been a shepherd out watching my flocks at night, of good tidings from an angel of the Lord.

Christmas is the season of signs. The author of Luke's Gospel makes the signs of Christmas, such as stars, angels and dreams, the beginning of his Gospel with poetic mastery. Into the tradition of Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, he sows with signs a theological blanket that cover us this holy season with grace, joy, lowliness, peace and universalism. The shepherds were given the sign that they would see a baby in a barn wrapped in a blanket. The magi were given the star as sign. Mary and Joseph were given dreams. Since the celebration of these sign were recognized by the church, this has been the season for all God's people with eyes to see, to find sings that point them to the Christ in this world, tucked away like a baby in a barn, to fill our days with hope and glad tidings.

Looking back at seasons past, Christmas has always come to me in signs. I remember in 2004 when we were building a big new house for Magdalene in a pretty rough neighborhood. I was driving to the construction sight and worrying if this home could ever be a sanctuary for the women in this neighborhood. Then, like swaddling clothes, I saw a red ribbon tied in a bow on a neighbor’s door. It was a sign of peace and hope in the midst of doubt and fear. I remember in 2001 driving home about 10:30 on Christmas Eve after a service. We were just getting ready to launch Thistle Farms and I was preoccupied the whole of advent. All the sudden driving I realized the roads were quiet just as I drove past the hospice at 19th and Charlotte. There was only one light on in the whole place. As I imagined the person keeping vigil on Christmas Eve as someone they loved was dying, the light all of the sudden looked as holy as a star over a manger. I remember just last year how it was the simple dancing of a candle flame that brought the spirit of hope and peace to me. As I watched it flicker on the altar, I thought about how a single candle can cut a path through the darkest night, and how I had gotten to be part of a community that had made about 50,000 candles through Thistle Farms over the past 10 years. It was like the multitude of the heavenly host filling my heart and singing.

You have signs that have carried you through this season like the most treasured gifts of Christmas. Chances are, your signs of Christmas rarely have been found in packages under your tree. It is not surprising that we all have signs, but they always come to us as surprises. This is the season to name them and recognize them as gifts of love that renew glad tidings that Emmanuel, God with us, was born. Your signs and my signs remind us that the eternal love of God is still visible in this temporal world and it can still turn stone to flesh in a heartbeat.

For me the eagle was a great sign of Christmas. The eagle is obvious because it looks like my totem, the hawk, dressed up like Santa. There are probably a million ways to see any sign. In the rainy foggy wilderness, the eagle had to hunt by getting in close, and it didn't look lofty on that dreary morning, it looked determined. The eagle preached that morning with a clarity that I can only strive for -- that its not always visions of mountain tops, lofty cathedrals, and sugar plums.  Sometimes the holiest is lowly, determined and alone.

The sign of Christmas is the moment we remember that our hearts beat to hope. The sign of Christmas is a welling of gratitude that bears the gift of loving the whole world. The sign of Christmas is a community that can take this world as it is -- seeing the horrible in the glorious, the meaningless suffering in the midst of deep meaning, and the sorrow in the midst of joy. And so with grateful hearts beating to hope we never, ever stop searching for signs as diligently as a hunting eagle on a foggy morning, that bring us glad tidings of peace on earth and goodwill to all people.

By Becca Stevens
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Last Minute Holiday Cheer

Credit: Chicago Now

It's your favorite time of year:  rushing to get to the airport, long lines at the check in counter and you just realized you didn't get anything for your Aunt Betty!  No need to fear, you still have a chance to pick up some handmade love before you take off for a winter wonderland.

Thistle Farms products are located in the Nashville International Airport (BNA) at Nashville Star and NaSah's Nashville Nails.  Stop in, grab Aunt Betty a Body Butter and spread the holiday cheer wherever you're going!

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Thistle Farmers at The Farm

The great volunteers at The Farm at Natchez Trace have been lovingly hosting our Christmas party for the last few years and they really know how to treat humans as well as pets. Thanks for everything, Farm friends!

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Grammie

When I was 15 I bought a quarter-inch square of purple satin that claimed, from the card stock that it was mounted on, to be cut from Marilyn Monroe's bed sheet. When I saw it, the patchouli scented air in my favorite record shop seemed to stand absolutely still and I eagerly gave up three hours worth of hard earned babysitting money to own something that her gentle hand may have actually touched. I don't remember exactly, but surely I was at least a little bit skeptical. Purple satin does seem a bit cliche'.

I guess I wanted to prove that Marilyn could trust me to take good care of her scrap of shiny bed sheet and understand that I would look after this improbable, yet possible, possession with love and care. More than anything else, something unknown made me believe that some of this sweet lady's overlooked goodness could pass on to me if I were to touch something that she had touched. My heart was broken by her "Magdalene-ness" as well as her commonness long before the truths of this type of sisterhood were parts of my everyday life.

That was 30 years ago, and now I have outlived many of the people whose spirits I have admired and loved. I have walked back through hospital rooms and houses touching, very delicately, the possessions of family and friends whose exits from this life left me begging for one last touch. A wedding ring here and a baseball cap there. All intimate emblems of their having "been here." All, in some way, fulfilling that desperate fantasy of "if I just had one more minute, this is the tenderness with which I would hold you…"

It is in that spirit today that I will leave my home office to buy a body balm at Thistle Farms. Although I already have several, I need one from the stock that's on the shelves now. Yesterday, one of our dearest volunteers, Susie, better known as "Grammie" to all of us, died peacefully from an illness none of us even knew she had. Grammie was our chief body balm container cleaner. She lovingly prepared body balms for labeling and gave so freely of her compassion that I am positive that the goodness of her pretty trembling hands can actually still touch me back.

In my first conversation with Grammie she introduced herself very formally as Mary Sue. By the end of that conversation she was "Susie." When I met her a few days later in person she asked me to call her "Grammie." And that's how it happened. As the Volunteer Coordinator at Magdalene and Thistle Farms I love it when someone shows up a few times and we organically find their place in the circle together. Grammie seemed to know that we needed a Grammie before she even got here. Just knowing that was the first of her many gifts to us.

Please forgive an overzealous knowledge of pop culture, but Marilyn Monroe would have been 85 this year. I always think it's sort of funny when somebody's dad spends their life napping in a recliner only to find out that he is the same age as Mick Jagger. I guess our ages are all about what we make of them. Grammie's familiar youthful giggle and innate girlishness remind me that there is a right and a beautiful way to grow old.

Whether you are a celebrity or a volunteer, leaving those who loved you with a memory of the exact way your hand felt on theirs is an important gift. I take that memory with me today, along with my new body balm and the image of Grammie, always looking photo-ready and never once complaining in her blue OSHA-required manufacturing area cap.

Peace.

by Stacye Wilson, Volunteer Coordinator

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