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She was saying, “Everything is lining up
for us to be doing these great,
big things for women in the world.”
We are No Ordinary Women”... when
she said that, I felt it in my bones. I just
got chill bumps and said...
“That’s our name! No Ordinary Women,
because every woman is ordinary
and extraordinary.”
unrest of ‘I need to go somewhere else. I need to see something else.’ So, I went to Kenya with a group
called Kenya Partners,” Leah says. Little did she know, her first trip would not serve the purpose of
“getting it out of her system” to return home satisfied and more focused. “It changed my entire life.
You’re never the same after an experience like that,” Leah says. “It was very overwhelming. All of my
senses were just in overdrive.” She was exposed to so many new things that made her even struggle with
her own upbringing. “You can’t unsee the kids, the parents, and the lack of infrastructure,” explains Leah.
“I would have never thought I was living in an American bubble, but I definitely was.” Leah continued
her trips to Kenya, searching for purpose. “I kept going back, over and over. Every time it got worse…this
longing and this unease. Nothing makes sense. What am I supposed to be doing with this?” she explains.
Throughout the course of her trips, Leah developed a special friendship with a woman in Kenya named
Irene. Irene had been working on starting a women’s group in Kenya focused on escaping domestic
abuse and overall empowerment. This got Leah’s brain ticking. “She has an incredible way with words,”
Leah says of Irene. “She’s very poetic. She was saying, “Everything is lining up for us to be doing these
great, big things for women in the world. We are no ordinary women. I feel it in my bones.” I just got
chill bumps and said, “That’s our name! No Ordinary Women, because every woman is ordinary and
extraordinary. We want to give women both here and in Kenya the tools, the confidence, and the power
to take the ordinary lives they are living and to live them with extraordinary purpose and meaning.”
Leah and her volunteers work with the two women’s groups in Kenya to strengthen the sales of their
jewelry, clothing, and other artisan products. Design, quality and production, and US domestic sales