Our Homemakers Group

Cheese making at one of our meetings this summer.

 Tomorrow will be our last homemakers group for the year. Both last summer and this a friend and I have led a homemakers group (we meet at our church building) to encourage and equip homemakers. It has been a pretty fun experience.

  I thought I would tell you all a little more about it in case you also might find this sort of thing useful and want to start something of this sort in your community.

   To begin with to get a group together we simply announced it at church, invited friends and then I also told about it in our local homeschool newsletter. The first year we did also announce it in the newspaper but that never brought anybody to it.

  We decided to meet weekly throughout the summer. I think this would also work nicely doing it monthly year round.

Slicing up the cheese so that everyone can take a sample home.

  Each week when we get together we start with prayer and a devotion time then we go into either a discussion or a hands on homemaking activity. Some of the things that we have had discussions on have been: Organizing, Simplifying/Living Purposefully, Bringing God's Word into our Home, Laundry Tips, Menu Making, Home Remedies, Healthy Eating, Clothing your Family Frugally, Cleaning and more.

  Some of the things we have done demonstrations/hands one activities have been Canning, Cheese making, Yogurt and Kefir making, Bread Making, Flower Arranging, Making Laundry Detergent, Making Lip Balm and a Lotion Bar, Sauerkraut making and more.

Yogurt making and Healthy Snacks

 We have a lot of time for open discussion and so we learn a lot from everybody - not just the person who came prepared to share.

Canning both green beans and dry beans.

   Our discussions will often lead to further learning and time together beyond the group as well. After something was brought up in homemakers group one from our group ended up coming over to my house to learn about beekeeping. Then in our discussion on natural and homemade personal care products I learned that a couple people made soap. I had been wanting to watch somebody do it before I did it on my own so one lady gave me her recipe and another one had me over to help with soap making (They didn't think soap making would be good to do at the group with lots of little kids around).

The sauerkraut ready to sit on the shelf and ferment.

 This group has been both a learning experience and a blessing to me and I know to others as well. If you like the idea of moral support in your homemaking ventures I really do recommend starting something like this.

Have you ever been involved with a homemakers group? Do you have any ideas for making it even better?