D1 – Facing Hunger Foodbank – Harold Williams "BagBowl" Cooney

Monday, August 31st 2026. Studio Uncle Fish, Irmo, South Carolina.

Woke by alarm at 7am in my van, parked parallel to the road out back of the studio. 75° ish. Clear, about to be bright.

The beginning of something great, I’m sure. Lol. Day 1! Let’s go!

Agreements

In a progressive future, there will be a link to the agreements document here.

Well, blog buddy, the first thing we both need to recognize is that this blog is the expressive property of a goal oriented organization.

There are two goals, and you and I, we are here only in an attempt to achieve those two goals.

Sell beads.
Go backpacking.

Excellent to be working with you. It should be entertaining.

“Agreements” is the name of the working document that describes, expands, and makes those two goals achievable.

My job is to review the Agreements every morning because these two goals are unachievable without an intentional practice of conditional self-awareness.

I’m not here by accident. I won’t be able to move on from here by accident. I won’t reach the two rather specific goals I have by accident.

So, yeah, buddy, now you know. This is a two goal organization, and you and I are here to talk about it.

A spot on my normal walking route. It’s a pleasant walk, especially in the morning or evenings. I would guess about 4.25 miles.

Studio Assessment

Derrick (the owner of this studio, I am his studio mate, his glass name is Uncle Fish) returned home from a few days of enjoyment at a music festival.

The glass shop is looking good on a Monday.

I think I’m running low on propane, but I’m long on oxygen. Studo is clean and good to go.

Kiln split from this morning. Probably.One of the most interesting parts about this business is the kiln split. It will take you some time to have enough information to understand what’s happening. These are glass marbles. I made those yesterday. They are piled by style while I decided what sales and marketing fate each object has.

The quota card from last week is complete, and it’s not good.

I am asked by this business to deliver $3,500 retail weekly. Card says I delivered $2,605. That’s a $895 shortfall. 74% of required or a letter C grade. Cropped out is sales from last week, which are way worse.

eBay Charity Auctions

It’s gonna take some explaining, but yeah, buddy, every day, the first order of business is charity business.

Starting and ending one charity auction every single day. 100% donation to food banks and food programs around the United States.

Screen capture of current status of auctions, which is dramatically and so remarkably (hello) better than the last week. Current retail value on three Zanfirico marbles is $75 dollars, and these bids track beautifully to that price, including the listing that has only 2 Zanfirico marbles; the bids is lower. If these auctions were like this every day… amazing.

Yesterday, I kicked the charity eBay auction can down the road and did the minimal amount of work to make things go into the next day. And here we all. Everything needs doing.

Total of this program so far. I think this is a very good start. Learning to hold these numbers is where things are at for me. It’s a little business. It requires time and resources. For example, marbles. I am selling 3 a day, 7 days a week. That’s 90 ish marbles a month, which is a whole lot of lampworking.

Last month, I was supporting an organization with an annual budget north of $430 million, Houston Food Bank. This month, Facing Hunger Foodbank, which has an annual budget of $23 million. So about 1/18th the size. Hopefully, this will allow myself business a more meaningful contribution.

This is the listing text I’m using. I got this information about Facing Hunger Foodbank using Gemini, a process I have learned to be very skeptical about.

Benefiting Facing Hunger Food Bank
100% of the proceeds from this auction directly benefit Facing Hunger Food Bank, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit hunger relief organization.

About Facing Hunger Food Bank: Facing Hunger Food Bank is an official member of the Feeding America network and is dedicated to eliminating hunger across 12 vulnerable counties in Central Appalachia (specifically Western West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky). This region faces significant economic challenges and high rates of food insecurity.

Your bid supports their mission to provide consistent, reliable access to nutritious food. In addition to staple foods, Facing Hunger focuses heavily on sourcing and distributing fresh produce and perishable goods through their extensive mobile food pantry network, reaching families, children, and seniors living in isolated rural communities and food deserts where grocery stores are unavailable.

I honestly do not know if I’ve made a good choice. I tried. Let’s see what happens. This is their first auction. It went live at 3 pm Eastern.

Everything takes forever. I depart the shop at 4:20 and am back at the studio at 5:05 after stopping for fuel. Lol.

Buddy, it will seem less dumb in a couple of weeks. Just hold on.

Etsy

The Zanfirico Harold Etsy page. You buy, I backpack.

Buddy, I wish I had anything to pack and ship. Or at least list. But I don’t.

Sales have been hard to come by. For five days previous, no sales. I’m hoping something happens today. But with no new listings today, the algorithm is not in my favor.

Considering that I’m absolutely only talking to myself with this blog (and this blog is by far my best communication investment going), I obviously have no audience to buy anything from Etsy today.

What take there was from this morning’s kiln split will be listed tomorrow.

Yeah, buddy, it’s hard out there for a hippie. We be trying, though.

Lampworking

I am ready to begin trying to earn a living at 6:15 pm. Lol, sigh. I ate a bunch of frozen cherries, though. They were good.

Well, buddy, it’s 11:35 pm now and I’ve about had it. Some marbles in the kiln but not anywhere close to an impressive number.

I did run the came experiment that had been working its way through. Long story short, it looks exactly like the brown on brown nightmare I thought it would.

I can in no way afford new materials. Using what I have to the best effect possible is necessary, which is difficult because all I have are “silver colors,” which are about as Italian as a Tim Tam. The experiment here is to see how bad the brown on brown situation really is. I have multiple projects that could solve or work with problems, but the brown on brown situation can’t look like total crap. It needs to have some redeeming qualities. And so, experiment. I’m looking for crap I can work with.

Conclusion

For a day one, pretty good.

Hiking season is 213 days away. We’ll, it was. Now it’s 212 days away…

A lot of time today on eBay, which is not great. It’s a large investment. There’s no getting around that, but lack of efficiency via lack of immediate response to duties makes it unnecessarily burdensome. It would be better if I was better, basically.

Seems like a great day to me. I got to pass out.

Harold Williams "BagBowl" Cooney