In the community

De-Stress essentials coughed it up for the annual Santa Barbara Fur Ball!

Having just launched my store, what better way to kick-off the giving spirit with a donation of de-stress items nicely displayed for silent auction goers at a Gala Event benefitting the Santa Barbara County Animal Care Foundation for the homeless and injured animals in our county. The Foundation works in collaboration with the Santa Barbara County Animal Services and its volunteers in efforts to move forward to fulfill their goal -- to make the all the shelters in the county "no-kill" for adoptable animals. The Foundation is an all-volunteer non-profit organization that supports the homless animals in all three of our local county shelters.

We adopted our very pampered pooch, below, who might otherwise have been euthanized in one of our county's animal shelter so we're very happy and lucky she's with us today... and I couldn't resist shamelessly promoting our bundle of joy... http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?id=861. What does all this have to do with de-stress. Alot. Our pets are instrumental in de-stressing us. They love unconditionally, they get us out and their quirks make us laugh.

This is my small leap in response to ethical consumerism and responsible capitalism by helping those whose voices cannot be heard. I started on this venture by combining my skills and talents to create a store that provides wellness and stress relief to a stressed-out world. My intention has since naturally evolved further by blending my experiences in my non-profit background into a for-profit world. I started out raising major gifts for the metro Washington, DC area public TV and classical radio station http://www.weta.org then went on to business development at http://www.pbs.org in Alexandria, VA where I worked with the the brightest and kindest people in the business, and in Santa Barbara, CA at http://www.communityenvironmentalcouncil.org, where I was so lucky to be a part of a small group of passionate caring and dedicated people. My non-profit career was slowly waning with the Girl Scouts http://www.gstc.org and Sansum Diabetes Research Institute http://www.sansum.org and my internal compass was leading me again to something different... but still keeping grounded in the non-profit world. So, here I am today working on blending making people feel good and to do good. Be well.