prologue.

for those of you unfamiliar with Six Stone Jars and our plight to fight dirty water, this is for you.

Six Stone Jars is turning wine into clean water.

in short, we are a wine company who is…

• based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
• finding the best Michigan wines.
• relabeling with the Six Stone Jars name.
• distributing these wines throughout Michigan. (and eventually other far off lands)
• giving away 86% of our profits towards clean water in the developing world.  Learn more about the world’s water crisis.

the company was started in late summer 2009 by two 22-year old friends who enjoy all-things Grand Rapids, phenomenal wine, eclectic cuisine, clean design, clean water, cause-connected products, traveling, and other things…that are likely to surface as this blog continues.

we are Kelsey D. & Patrick V. » the ‘us/we/our’ referred to in this blog. we are meeting with a photographer soon, in case you are sitting there wondering what we look like.

anyways, let’s get back to business.

Six Stone Jars Wine was inspired by Jesus’ first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. while stumbling across that passage, we couldn’t help but think of our passion for wine and frequent consumption.

if it could only translate it into something for the greater good.

then it hit us: wine into water. selling wine, giving our profits away for clean water. we could literally save lives by drinking wine. could it get any easier or more enjoyable?

we searched the marketplace to see if anyone else had the same idea. the only results we found were for ‘wine to water’ wine tasting events. there was not a product like this widely available. we decided to go for it.

we took our concept to several prominent thinkers, artists, businessmen, idea-people, movers, shakers, and the like. we wanted to see what they thought before totally diving in. we walked out of every meeting with overwhelming excitement and shock. let’s just say kelsey was very somewhat embarrassing with her excessive giddiness. luckily no one witnessed.

it’s one thing to be 22 year olds with what seems like the best idea of your life.

it’s an entirely new and incredible feeling when intelligent, experienced, respectable, successful, even infamous people also think you’re on to something big.

after that phase, we decided there was no going back.

over the last few months, we have been met with overwhelming support and encouragement. it’s crazy how all the pieces seem to be falling together. we have a steady stream of ‘right time, right place’ moments that are honestly hard to believe sometimes.

at the same time, it’s still hard work. hard. hard. hard.

hard.

sometimes so difficult we don’t even know where to begin. for everything that goes right, there is a hurdle or a critic there trying to stop our momentum. but when you are working towards a cause so much greater than yourself, it’s a lot harder to let that get in the way. it gives you exponentially more endurance and determination focusing on helping others rather than helping yourself.

SO right now, we are finishing the business plan. upon completion, we hope to secure the right funding to get this venture fired up!

there will be more posts on all of those things to come. for now, got to get back to work!

*please note: this is the most boring/uneventful entry that we will ever have on the Six Stone Jars blog. promise, it’s all uphill from here. just had to get those background details out of the way. now we are on to the good stuff!