I started wood burning in 2018, with a cheap pyrography pen from my boyfriend. Three more (increasingly more sophisticated) pens and many projects later, I can say I love wood burning, and it’s a hobby that is now more than paying for itself!

I mostly do wood burning on cutting boards, serving trays, and coasters in the business my husband and I have together, Tudo Azul.

Pyrography Gallery

My grandma is a professional artist, specializing in acrylic, watercolor, and oil painting. She has passed a few of her genes on to me. I paint as a hobby, and also sell my work. In 2017, I gave myself a challenge: to do 30 paintings in 30 days. After the challenge was over, I held an art show of my work. It felt like a great accomplishment, and was a huge success.

Painting Gallery

I’ve written newsletter articles, technical tutorials, short stories, and entire e-books, I’ve been published in “Life In Pacific Grove, Volume I,” I’m a 9-time winner of National Novel Writing Month, and I am currently working on a novel.

See below for samples of my writing:

27 Months of Personal Progress E-book

This is a personal project that I created as a member of the Peer Support Network as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Armenia. The subtitle says it all: A monthly handbook of ideas to guide your personal development during your Peace Corps service.

See full e-book here. (PDF file) »

Huntin’ For a Fishin’ Trip? E-book

I wrote and designed this e-book for a charter fishing company. It was an enticement for people to sign up for the e-newsletter; upon sign-up they would receive it as a free download. It explains many of the considerations you need to make when planning a trip with a charter fishing company, and it explains why Alaska Premier Charters is the best choice for a fun and successful trip.

See the full e-book here. (PDF file) »

Designotype Delegate Print Newsletter

The Designotype Delegate is a monthly print newsletter sent to subscribers and customers, including topics such as marketing, graphic design, personal development, and business updates. I wrote the back page column for several years, with the goal of telling personal light-hearted stories. Here is an example:

Professional Blogging for Academia and Corporate

I blogged for the office of Digital Learning and Inquiry (DLINQ) while at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS). I also managed the blogging schedule for the rest of the team.

I also blogged for Earthbound Farm. My blog posts included interviews with farmers, and informational posts with earth-friendly tips and organic education.

Click the following links to read some of my blog posts:

• Digital Detox 4: Better Passwords and Password Management
• The DIRT, April 20-May 4, 2018
• Meet Harvester and Grower, Kate Hitchcock
• Meet Farmer Stan Pura
• Four Oils to Try on Your Next Salad

With minimal guidance, I can create a website completely from scratch, or redesign a site that needs some TLC. I typically work in WordPress, and am able to customize myriad themes and incorporate plugins that will give your site additional functionality to suit your needs.

The following are some websites I have created.

Expanding Hearts Website

When Patty approached me about her business website, it was not mobile-responsive, it had several pages with broken content, and it was out of date. I updated the theme, made it mobile-responsive, refreshed the images, incorporated her logo and colors, added several new pages, wrote new copy, removed the broken links and updated the information to reflect her current business focus. Click here to view the current live site »

MiddCreate Website

The “Domain of One’s Own” initiative is one that took off in higher education primarily through a company called Reclaim Hosting. Middlebury was interested in being part of the initiative and was given a generic template that was being used by the majority of the participating institutions.

I wanted Middlebury’s portal to be more interesting and educational, so I heavily customized the theme. I designed the website to introduce the initiative and to provide tutorials for getting started. I chose the images and wrote most of the copy, as well as created the structure and layout of the site and most of the pages, with input from two other members of the team. (Please note: I do not continue to manage the site, and am aware that some images and links have since been broken.) View live site here »

I have experience managing websites for large academic institutions, internal communications, corporate entities, and small businesses and individuals.

Whether your site needs regular day-to-day maintenance, or has problems that need to be fixed, I can help. I can optimize your site for search engines (SEO), fix broken links, resize images, create interactive content, update blog posts, organize pages, add menu items, edit copy, and more.

Content Management Systems

WordPress and Drupal are the main content management systems I am familiar with, but I have also worked on websites in Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Joomla, and sites that were hand-coded with HTML and CSS through Dreamweaver. Whatever system your website uses, I am confident I can get up to speed quickly and take over whatever aspect of management you need help with.

Interactive Website Assets

Websites are never done. I’ve created interactive elements for many sites to keep them up-to-date, on-brand, and to serve the needs of the organization. For example, during Earth Month 2019, I created an online quiz for Earthbound Farm. The quiz title was “How green is your shopping trip?” and the questions were designed to encourage people to “shop like the Earth depends on it.” At the end, they could sign up to win a free reusable shopping bag, which was also an enticement for them to join our enewsletter. The quiz was so successful that we increased web traffic by 197%, had 29,000 quiz entries, and increased our enewsletter subscribers by 14,600.

I was provided with the copy, and I created the webpage and the quiz based on the copy. I also created four individual results pages and graphics that displayed depending on the final quiz score. I coordinated with my team to source the images used in the quiz. (Please note, the quiz is no longer accessible to the general public.)

A lot of digital designers don’t understand the nuances of designing for print. I do, because my mom owns a print shop and I grew up learning about the differences between CMYK and RGB, and why 300 dpi is critical for a crisp printed design. I also know which software program is best for the job: Photoshop for photo manipulation and image-heavy designs; InDesign for projects with a lot of copy; and Illustrator for logos and vector graphics that need to be available in various sizes.

Printed Marketing Materials

I have been designing business cards, flyers, brochures, newsletters, posters, banners, and more, since I was a freshman in high school. I’ve definitely gotten better since then, with practice and training. Now I am efficient and versatile with my design aesthetic. See below for a gallery of my print designs.

Print Design Gallery

Designs intended for the web need special treatment. They need to be smaller files so they load quickly, but they can’t be grainy or pixelated or they won’t look professional.

I have created a variety of designs intended to be viewed only online, including infographics, social media graphics, website graphics, banner ads, enewsletters, ebooks, and more. See below for a gallery of my digital designs.

Digital Design Gallery

Maybe it’s because I don’t live there anymore. Maybe it’s because I have been desensitized by all the news coverage from other natural disasters over the years. Maybe it’s because I’m too much of a stoic Finn.

But although I wasn’t affected by the flash flooding that happened in Michigan’s Copper Country on June 17, 2018, the videos and pictures of raging torrents of water too close to the houses, streets that looked like old crumpled tar paper, and cars and trucks buried up the windows in mountains of rubble and mud, stuck with me. I had read headlines like this before, “Flash Floods Wreak Havoc.” “Houses and Businesses Destroyed.” But unlike other news articles, I recognized those places. It was a morbid fascination; I couldn’t look away. 

Facebook posts, like the following from Gowtham, were showing up everywhere. (Click here to see Pics by Gowtham, if it doesn’t show up below.)

Didn’t Affect Me

My family was a little farther north, away from the brunt of the storm. They had gotten an inch or two of rain and some wind, and had sustained little damage—just minor basement flooding which is not so unusual. Well, maybe unusual for June, but the basement always got a little water in it from the winter snow runoff, so it’s not like they couldn’t deal with it. 

I was supposed to be working on a website for a client. I didn’t have time for perusing the pictures on social media. I was in California now, super far away. It’s not like there was anything I could do. The flooding was bad, but it didn’t affect me…

…and that’s when it hit me. My client was there, in the thick of it. I had just had a meeting with her two weeks ago in the coffee shop that now had a river in front of it instead of a road. Two weeks ago, I had driven past the Taco Bell sign that was now laying uprooted in the sunken parking lot. I had crossed the bridge over a pristine blue canal that was now running brown with mud and debris. I had walked down the sidewalks where there were now sinkholes big enough to swallow a car. 

This video compilation by Brockit, Inc., says it all. (Click here to see the video by Brockit, Inc., if it doesn’t show up below.)

Didn’t affect me? That was my hometown. I grew up there, went to college there. Lots of people—literally hundreds of people—I knew still lived there. In fact, the woman with the kid in the news story above was my college professor.

Didn’t affect me? My community was crying for help and I wanted to turn my back on them and pretend that there was nothing I could do. 

Didn’t affect me? I was starting to have dreams about washed-out roads and children whose homes were destroyed.

Didn’t affect me? A little boy died. He was my youngest brother’s age. They lived fourteen miles apart.

Heck, yes, this affected me. Then I couldn’t stop crying. I sent $100 to my cousin, who was headed to the store to buy some supplies to donate. She spent it on pasties to feed the hungry volunteers who were performing the manual labor I was too far away to help with myself.

But it didn’t feel like enough.

$50 Million and Rising

The local news reported that the damage was assessed at $50 million. Fifty million dollars is a whole lot of money, especially for that area of the United States. The entire Upper Peninsula of Michigan has under 100,000 people (source: Wikipedia). Houghton County, which includes the area most affected by the storm, is even smaller. With a population of 36,565 people and a median household income of $39,080, (Source: Datausa) they are completely unprepared to pay such an exorbitant amount to rebuild.

The total damage is even higher. The $50 million only included damage to infrastructure like County and local roads, municipal water, sewage and drain systems. It did not include damage to State assets such as MDOT roads and DNR trails, or the cost of damage to individual homes and businesses.

The median property value in Houghton County is $96,100, which may not sound like a lot compared to where I live now, but a lot of property was damaged. It was estimated that 151 structures suffered minor damage, 70 had major damage, 9 were inaccessible, and 4 were completely destroyed.

As for the recreation trails that bring tourists in droves, especially winter snowmobilers, there were 92 minor washouts, 28 medium washouts, 15 large washouts and 15 massive washouts. (source: Upper Michigan Source)

Unprecedented

I was just telling my boyfriend that the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) is the safest place to live because the only natural disasters we get are blizzards, and as long as you have heat and a roof over your head, you just stay inside and you’re fine. Then when the blizzard is over, you go out and shovel. We don’t get earthquakes, hurricanes, or tornadoes.

We don’t have exploding volcanoes. Lake Superior is big, but there is never a tsunami danger. It’s a safe, benign, calm place to live, out in the middle of nowhere.

This flooding is unprecedented. Everyone was caught off guard, and completely unprepared for the amount of destruction it caused.

An Outpouring of Support

The community came together after the storm. Donations flooded the drop-off centers, and volunteers flocked to move rubble out of the streets, dig out cars, and clean the gobs of mud out of their neighbors’ houses. They dropped everything to volunteer their time and energy to turn the community back right-side-up. (Click here to see the Facebook post by Brockit, Inc., of volunteers helping after the flood, if it doesn’t show up below.)

Just a few days into the clean-up efforts, a regional disaster coordinator told the volunteers that that they were two weeks ahead of any recovery effort that disaster officials have ever seen.

I was proud of them.

But just because the (literal) storm was over, and donations were coming in, and people were recovering, didn’t mean that they no longer needed help. In fact, even after (maybe especially after) the initial work is done and the volunteers go back to their regular day jobs, support is still needed.

I’m Just One Little Person Who Lives Far Away

I wanted to help more, but thought, “I’m just one little person who lives far away. There’s nothing I can do.”

Have you ever had that thought? I have, and it has stopped me from helping before.

This time, I decided it didn’t matter. Yes, I was one little person, but I was someone who could help. I had to try. I had to do something. But what?

“What if I have a fund raiser?”

I was plagued by doubts. I’ve never held a fund raiser before. I don’t know the first thing about it. I told myself, “I’m 2,500 miles away, surrounded by people who don’t even know that the UP exists; why would they care about it?”

But the thought wouldn’t go away. 

So I’m going to have a couple fund raising events.

I’m going to have a painting party in July. I’m asking you to participate and contribute. All proceeds will be donated to the 2018 Houghton County Flood Relief Fund, held by the Portage Health Foundation, as described here. 

Why Should You Help?

• Because you care about me
• Because you care about the UP
• Because even if it didn’t affect you, it affects you

Are You Just One Little Person (Who Lives Far Away)?

Even if you are just one little person, and even if you live far away, you can lend a helping hand.

How You Can Help

1. Tell your story. How were you affected by the flood? Doesn’t matter if you still live in the UP or not. Doesn’t even matter if you have never lived there. Maybe you have traveled there, or maybe learning about this flood struck a chord about something else you want to share. Let me know, and I’ll publish your story on my blog. I’ll be posting stories right up to the fund raising events.
2. Donate something to the auction. I’m collecting donations for the auction. Details are still being worked out.
3. Participate by painting. Come to the painting party to unleash your inner artist. (On September 15; Details below. Note, date has been updated, due to a family emergency at the time of the originally scheduled event)
4. Participate by buying something at the auction. Place a bid at the auction and go home with something amazing! (A potential option. More details coming.)

The important thing is to do something. Prove that one little person can make a difference.

Participate by Painting

A Painting Party—Details

“Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Venue

Wild Thyme Botanicals (map)

1 John Street Sand City, CA 93955

Date (Date has been updated, due to a family emergency at the time of the originally scheduled event) Saturday, September 15, 2018

Time 1:00-4:00 pm, Pacific Time

Event Description“Beautiful Sunsets” Painting Party: Come learn to paint with Evelyn Helminen. Eat snacks, drink your beverage of choice, and unleash your inner artist in a fun and supportive environment.

RSVP Spaces are limited. RSVP at this Facebook Event, or by emailing Evelyn (evelyn [at] travelingev [dot] com).

Cost A $30 suggested donation would gratefully be accepted.

If you’re looking for other ways to help, see these sites:

• http://coppercountrystrong.com/
• Buy a t-shirt
• https://www.facebook.com/CopperCountryStrong2018/
• Or buy a t-shirt here
• Or buy a hoodie
• Buy a 12″ x 16″ print of Quincy Mine
• Or buy this t-shirt

Featured image by Gowtham

Note, this blog entry originally appeared on my other website, which is no longer in service, travelingev.com. It is posted here as a sample of my writing.

Update: I raised $2,000 through this event, which I sent to the Houghton County Flood Relief Fund.