I love how SammyBags came about and not only helping Sam with a purpose in life, but helping our planet too. How cool is that! Here is their story.....
Our Story
Pilgrim is an espresso bar in Christchurch, which has the good fortune of having a customer come through the door and hand over her reusable bag and ask for a scone (yep that’s you Emma!) Every time I would quiz Emma with questions, heat and butter her scone, and then hand over her coffee. While Emma would beat her way back to her office, I would search for a magic material. And then I got my hands on some.
Meanwhile in life outside of Pilgrim we also had the good fortune of meeting Samantha. Sam lived up our Street and spent more time on the swings than our two preschool kids combined. Only Sam was 18, suicidal and struggling to keep herself afloat. Sam likes kids, we have kids. Sam likes cats, we have a cat. Sam likes roast lamb and so do our kids. So we hung out and became friends, our family and Sam. Winter turned to Spring and Spring turned to Summer. We found out Sam was a whizz at origami and when we got our first sample of the fabric we let Sam loose on the scissors and sewing machine and she loved it. And we thought this could be a cool thing for Sam to help out with and then SammyBags was kinda born, and we’ve been annoying her ever since.
Own It
Our environment has a direct relationship to our mental health and we believe in the concept that business is a vehicle for positive change. We made the connection between environmental sustainability and mental health courtesy of Sam’s tattoo, “Change Nothing; Nothing Changes” which is applicable to both mental and environmental health! Basically it’s implying that staying the same requires a decision just as much as changing does. Each time we refuse to change, we still make a decision, so if we don’t choose reusable packaging, we’re making the choice that nothing is going to change.
Own it, encourages us to… Own our spiritual, physical & mental health, Own the impact our behaviour has on our environment, and last but not least, to Own our brown paper bags, something that people would never have considered owning up until now. It’s a statement about personal responsibility, making the conscious decision to Own it, and rejects the notion of being helpless.
Written by David
https://youtu.be/6PctW90YEZ0 follow this link to watch the story featuring on Seven Sharp