We often entertain visitors from “upstairs” – people picking up wreaths, or tourists who wander by and wonder what is going on in the First Lutheran Church.  One day during wreath week a well dressed group of businessmen from South Korea came through, and engaged some of the decorators in conversations while admiring the beautiful wreaths.  One Garden Club member had traveled to Seoul and discussed her impressions of the city, another spoke of her travels in Southeast Asia in the 1980’s, and everyone was having a good time showing the gentlemen how we create a decorated wreath.  Then one of the men observed that the group looked very happy, very healthy, and seemed very well educated.  Yes, that was certainly true, answered one of our volunteers, who seemed a bit puzzled by the comment.  Then the light dawned: the men  thought they had wandered into a manufacturing facility, and rather than seeing sullen undernourished women working long hours to bring home a small wage, they found (but did not know it) amply fed happy women working long hours for no wages at all.  From that point forward we laughingly referred to our operation as “the sweatshop.”  Long hours were needed to produce the lovely rose and burgundy indoor wreath shown below, which very sadly was stolen from the door the very evening it was hung: