Senator Carol Liu’s Women’s Health Conference last Friday was amazing!  There were engaging speakers, informative workshops and a lot of great people to meet.  Among them were my friends Tasha Oldham, my fabulous attorney Dava Casoni and Rose Cole, who gave a standing-room only lecture about her extraordinary nutrition program.  (Senator Liu, by the way, was the one who gave me the California Small Business of the Year Award back in May.)

Everyone who attended wound up carrying one of the “White Rose” Cinchy Totes we made especially for the event.  Given that the symbol for the women’s health conference was a rose in full bloom, it seemed only appropriate – and, of course, it suited my friend Rose perfectly.

Packing all the goodies into our Cinchy Totes

And here are those beautiful bags lined up the day before the event, just waiting for the attendees.

Our "White Rose" Cinchy Totes, all lined up

We also set up a booth there and our wonderful office manager Alexis and I had a great time selling our beautiful Rebagz to the people there.  Our new Statement Makers were particularly popular, and one of our customers had a particularly touching story.

Carole Young - a true survivor

This is Carole Young.  She wound up buying one of our “Nipple” Tattletale Totes – and the reason she wanted that bag is because she’s a 19-year survivor of breast survivor.  All our “Nipple” Statement Makers Bags support the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund. (I’ll talk more about them in an upcoming blog – promise!)  Like so many other cancer survivors I’ve met, Carole had a delightful sense of humor and you’d never know from how healthy she looked that she has had to battle this horrible disease.  It was an honor to meet her.

When the annoyances of running a business start to get to me, I remember people like Carole and all that they’ve been through.  It reminds me to be so grateful that I even have a business to run, and that I also have my health, a roof over my head and people in my life that I love so very much.

XOXO Marty

Between typhoons, tsunamis and earthquakes, it seems like the calamities over in Asia won’t stop.  The people we work with in the Philippines managed to survive their second catastrophic storm in eight days, thankfully, but they’ll have a lot of rebuilding to do.   I know they’d appreciate any support you’re open to giving them.  CauseCast has some good links, if you’d like to make a donation.

Once things are up and running again, we’ll be keeping them busy with our new Statement Makers bags.   These new eco-friendly handbags made using a recycled material we can print on, plus the straps are made from recycled PET plastic.  We’re in the process of making arrangements with some wonderful non-profits who’ll be receiving part of the proceeds from the sales of Statement Makers.  As soon as everything’s in place, I’ll tell you more about who we’re working with.

We will, of course, continue to donate $1 per order to Global Exchange.  That goes without saying.

I’ll talk more about the whole concept behind Statement Makers in future blogs because we’re really making an effort as a company to be part of the solution to the world’s ills rather than part of the whining, fear and anger we see all around us.

I want to thank a terrific blog named SheSez.com (love that name!) for writing such a flattering article about our Rebagz. SheSez is all about “the art of living well,” and it’s a site that’s beautifully put together. Make sure you check it out. SheSez is chock full of fashion advice and really great information – fashion, beauty and otherwise.

XOXO Marty

A catastrophe hit my friends over in the Philippines when a tropical storm named Ketsana dumped a month’s worth of rain in 12 hours, making it the worst storm to hit that country in 40 years. Eighty percent of Manila was under water over the weekend and most everyone I spoke with had at least one floor of their home completely flooded. Fortunately, no one I know has died or been injured – but the death count over there is up to about 250 and I’m sure it will rise.

Manila under water - BBC News

My staff here is as concerned as I am, and yesterday we realized that, at times like these, the work we’re doing becomes incredibly important. I assured our Manila-based broker Malu by phone that we’d still be making our bags over there. “This may not help today,” I told her, “but just tell everyone that there’ll be plenty of work in the future – and that means you’ll all have income, so you’ll be able to rebuild.”

This is why it’s so important to be human-friendly as well as eco-friendly, and by that I mean maintaining fair labor practices, where the people who are making your bags or other products take home good pay. Yes, as a result our bags cost more than the ones made in China, India or elsewhere by people earning slave wages. But our fair labor practices mean that the people hit so hard by this calamity will slowly be able to resurrect their homes, send their children to school and see the doctor if they need to – and given how bad the flooding situation is in the Philippines, disease is going to be rampant.

Malu kept thanking me and our new office manager Alexis Lyman for our concern and for our continued business. She also thanked us for the American aid being sent over there, which was really quite sweet of her, and Malu’s gratitude is something I wanted to pass along to you.

If you’d like to help out by making a donation to help the people hit so hard by Tropical Storm Ketsana, AmeriCares is sending relief over there as we speak. If you’d like to wire money directly to the Philippines, the Philippine consulate in Hawaii has a list of local organizations who are accepting funds on behalf of the victims. I know Malu and her countrymen and women would truly appreciate it.

XOXO Marty

One of the fun things about what I do is getting to know our customers. Fortunately, given that we make our bags in an eco-friendly and human-friendly way, we seem to attract really terrific people – and one of those people is Carolyn Segal.

Carolyn became a customer earlier this year and I think we got to know her better because of some question about shipping. She turned out to be so great to talk to by phone and email that we started looking forward to her orders just so we had an excuse to say “hi” and thank her. Again. And again.

She’s a rather prolific handbag buyer. Carolyn even took advantage of our most recent ezine and ordered a few bags from our “Lion” collection, which is now on clearance. “I’m a Leo!” she told us by phone.

Her ebullience is hard-won, as it turns out. Jerry Segal, Carolyn’s husband and a renowned Philadelphia-area attorney, woke up from surgery 21 years ago to discover he was suddenly quadriplegic due to a mistake during the operation.

Can you imagine? How dreadful for him and for Carolyn as well. But they both possess indomitable spirits and, fortunately, there was a place called the Magee Rehabilitation Hospital not far from where he’d worked. With the combined determination of the Segals and the hospital staff, Jerry was able to walk out of the hospital three months later with the aid of crutches. He was even able to return to work and to his golf game.

To thank Magee, Carolyn and Jerry organized the first Jerry Segal Golf Classic back in 1990. Since that time, they’ve raised over $7 million for the hospital which has paid for new patient transportation, new state-of-the-art equipment, subsidized housing for patients’ families and over 50,000 meals for those family members.

20th Annual Jerry Segal Golf Classic

And the 20th Annual Jerry Segal Golf Classic is coming up on Friday, September 25, 2009 at the Green Valley and ACE Country Clubs in Lafayette Hill, a beautiful suburb of Philadelphia. If you’re in the area, why not drop by and contribute to a great cause? (You’ll find several of our Rebagz at the silent auction.) And if you’re not anywhere near Philadelphia on the 25th, why not make a donation in the name of someone you love?

This is a chance to help create an extraordinary transformation for many of Magee’s patients. Imagine being carted in on a gurney, feeling hopeless, immobile and terrified – and then having a fighting chance at leaving the hospital on your feet and into the arms of those you love because of the amazing facility helped by donations like yours.

Here at Rebagz, we don’t know Jerry. But we do know Carolyn. We adore and admire her big heart, great sense of humor and dedication.

And we think Jerry’s a very, very lucky man for all sorts of reasons – but mostly because he’s got Carolyn by his side.

XOXO Marty