LOCAL ENTREPRENEURS HELP FUEL BACK-TO-SCHOOL BUZZ
THE SPECTATOR’S NATALIE PADDON spoke with business owners who are creating beeswax food wraps, signs and jewelry as students return to their classrooms
Back-to-school has traditionally meant hitting big-box stores for sought-after supplies — from pencils, to notebooks, to crayons. But more and more, local entrepreneurs are also becoming part of the September boom, by offering jewelry to help parents and children cope with being apart, to creating signs for first-day-of-school photos.
Aromatherapy jewelry
When Judy Marr retired from teaching in 2017, the Burlington resident had extra time on her hands and started looking for a creative outlet.
Having taught for 30 years, she was familiar with the first-day jitters for kindergartners but knew that could also apply to children attending daycare for the first time, starting a new school or heading to high school.
Paired with the growing crisis of mental health issues, Marr began thinking about how she might be able to help lessen stress and anxiety for some.
After some brainstorming and research, she started creating aromatherapy jewelry, including “Mommy and Me” and “Daddy and Me” bracelet sets to help those who may need added comfort after being separated as the school year begins.
Most times, parents purchase their own essential oils they can diffuse on the bracelet’s lava beads. While Marr tries to choose stones in colours kids like so they will wear them, the bracelets also include stones to help with anxiety.
Marr, who makes the jewelry from her home and shares it online through her Facebook page “Lavendersblue 2018,” said it’s her way of helping children and parents cope with their busy day-to-day lives.
“If I can help in any way alleviate some of that stress and anxiety for parent and child, then I’m happy to do that,” she said.
First/last day of school signs
Allison MacKay started her business making wooden growth charts before expanding to include T-shirts, travel cups and pillows.
It wasn’t until one of her girlfriends spotted a First/Last Day of School sign about three years ago that she came up with her own design and posted it on her “Here I Grow” Facebook page.
That summer, the Burlington resident sold about 75 of the stained wooden signs, she said. It’s been about as busy every summer since, with customers mostly hailing from the Hamilton, Oakville and Burlington areas.
The 12-by-18-inch boards with “First day of school” written on one side and “Last day of school” on the other, plus a chalkboard to detail the grade and date, are creations made at home by MacKay alone, unless she can rally the help of her three small children.
What started as a way to help “fill the gaps” while her husband was off work because of Crohn’s disease has “taken off to be quite a little business,” she said.
Beeswax and vegan food wraps
While longtime friends Robyn Menzies and Sarah Shearing were preparing for their daughters to start school for the first time, they were lamenting the lack of sustainable food storage options they could send in their children’s lunches.
“We were environmentalists at home, which was very easy to do, but I couldn’t really send my four-yearold to school with mason jars,” said Menzies.
Plastic and stainless steel containers proved difficult for her daughter to use, and wooden bento boxes weren’t the right fit.
That’s when they stumbled on reusable beeswax food wraps. But none of them really “ticked all the boxes” for Menzies. Many were not 100 per cent organic cotton, and those that were were “boring” and “didn’t spark a lot of joy.”
“My whole philosophy is being an environmentalist doesn’t have to be boring and it doesn’t have to be difficult,” she said. “The more something gives you joy ... the more you’re going to use it and adopt it into your life.”
So the two mothers decided to see what it took to start making their own with the requirements that they be beautiful and “super functional.”
They launched their business, “Earthology,” beginning with handmaking regular beeswax wraps last fall and launching a vegan line in March, while trying to use as many organic and local ingredients as possible, including sourcing from a beekeeper in Ancaster.
In addition to helping reduce single-use plastic, Menzies said the wraps also help address food security by keeping food fresher longer.
For now, it’s just the two friends working on the business, with the studio space in the basement of Shearing’s Hamilton home and the office situated where Menzies lives in Toronto.
Currently, their products are sold across Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. They have a retailer in Barbados and another in Spain.
Menzies’ daughter grabs her own wrap in the morning, makes a baggie with it and puts her snack inside. At the end of the day, she brings them home where they are washed and reused.
The wraps wear out after about a year, at which point they’re compostable or can be rewaxed.
“I really want to leave a legacy of sustainability for our daughter,” said Menzies. “We don’t have a plan B.”