Time to Give Back!

Part One:

The beginning of this month has brought with it several important milestones for the business. We've added a new bracelet and necklace set - Piña Colada, Infinity Pearl, etc. - (as promised though, we won't turn this blog post into an advertisement for them👍), updated the site and began the process of making some important changes that will be announced later this year. With all that being said, we have something even more important to discuss! I'm proud to announce that we have finally managed to partner with a local animal shelter and are now launching our long awaited (at least for us😊) charity bracelet sale!

So, just to provide a little backstory - If you've happened to look at the "Who we are" section of the site, you'll see we do our best every year to donate to as many charities as possible. Usually, this just means writing a check or anonymously donating to some organization located in or around Oaxaca, Mexico. Why this area? Well, despite being one of the premier big wave surf sites in the world (one of our passions and a large part of the overall theme of the website) it's also where our family started and where many of them still live. Unfortunately, the area also faces many challenges dealing with poverty and social issues like the treatment of the indigenous population. The sheer number of people living in poverty in this area is actually quite staggering. We just felt like if we had the ability to give back then we should do so.

This year though, we wanted to provide for some charities stateside and after some deep thought about where the amount of money we planned to donate would be the most effective, we decided to give to one of our local animal shelters. In fact, this is a very personal issue for us since a few years ago we became the adopted parents of our two rescue pups - Zeke Marley and Ms. Jazzy! So, long story short, we really wanted to figure out a way to provide an amount of money that would actually have an impact and came up with an idea that we thought would allow us to do exactly that.

Ms. Jazzy! We believe she's a Chizer (a Chihuahua and Schnauzer mix)

And this is Mr. Zeke Marley! It's very rare to find Dachshund rescues, but here he is.

Our idea was to arrange a one-month long sale featuring a specially designed, limited edition bracelet and to donate 50% of gross sales to the shelter we partnered with. Why fifty-percent? Well, we took a look at some other fundraising drives done by our competitors and found that the average they pledged to give was 5%. Obviously any donation (regardless of the amount) is a win for the organizations involved, but unless you think you can sell 250,000 bracelets in whatever period you've allotted for your drive, there isn't going to be much left over for those who need it. So, instead of keeping 95% of the proceeds for ourselves, we decided that half would be just enough to cover the cost of materials, advertising and to pay the people who actually make the bracelets for their time.

Check Back For Part 2 Where We Reveal The Name Of The Shelter And Exactly How You Can Help Support The Animals In Need