THE OPENER | HOW RE-GIFTING IS AWESOME, NOT “CHEAP” OR “LAZY”
The Potentiality inspires and educates people who are passionate about building community. One of the ways we do this is by featuring organizations (businesses, social enterprises, schools, and non-profits) that are doing cool things to build community.
Tara Drage
This month, we are focusing on Greendipiti, an awesome Vancouver, BC-based company that makes the world’s first reusable fabric greeting cards. The design allows for greeting cards to be passed from recipient to recipient thanks to the paper inserts (recycled paper of course!). A few weeks ago I exchanged emails with Greendipiti’s Founder, Tara Drage, and she explained how her business helps communities realize their full potential through sustainable giving. This interview with Tara will help, too!
PART 1 – THE CONTEXT | TELL US ABOUT GREENDIPITi. WHAT IS YOUR UNIQUE VALUE PROPOSITION AND HOW DO YOU DELIVER ON IT?
Give. Love. Give again.
Greendipiti’s reusable fabric greeting cards have a one-of-a-kind design that allows for greeting cards to be passed on from recipient to recipient with recycled paper inserts for the handwritten message, which fit perfectly into a sewn-in vinyl pocket inside of the card. These inserts are switched-out each time to card is passed on to a new person. The cards can be given again and again and again – some have already made it around the world and back.
Tara always liked creating hand-made greeting cards as a little girl. In the past, she used glitter glue, markers, construction paper, and an evolving eye for design. Today she uses her sewing machine, her love for creating, her very evolved eye for design and her ‘granny-chic’ style to create greeting card art. Greendipiti is a reflection of Tara’s inspiration for creating functional items out of old and donated clothing.
Each card also has a trackable history thanks to an insert that folks can write their name on (it’s pretty much like an old library-book sign out label). She’s also digitized the tracking feature of the cards, and each card has its own unique hashtag, so the community can incorporate their friends and community into the process using Twitter and Instagram.
PART 2 – THE CHALLENGE | TELL US ABOUT THE COMMUNITY-BASED CHALLENGE YOU ARE ADDRESSING. WHAT PROBLEM ARE YOU SOLVING?
Greendipiti offers the chance to change the way we give greeting cards to one another while challenging the culture of stuff that overwhelms so many communities.
People have too much stuff. That’s why we always feel the annual need to ‘spring clean’, which often involves carting off throwaway items to garage sales/thrift stores, clothing swaps, junk drawers, storage businesses, filled garages and closets. Tara sees a strong connection between this ‘must-purge-culture’ and the obsession with reality TV shows like Hoarders and Storage Wars, which showcases extreme cases of the ‘need for acquiring things’.
Creating space and clearing clutter can bring a sense of order to our lives. Tara, however, sees a solution to this problem that addresses this challenge way, way, way farther up the waste stream. The average person gives 31 paper greeting cards per year. An estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field 10 stories high, and requires the harvesting of nearly 300,000 trees. E-greetings are a low-cost, waste-free alternative to paper cards, but who actually appreciates them? E-greetings have become fairly impersonal and do not have the same meaning for the recipient as a handwritten paper card (the authenticity of emailing a dancing chipmunk to your friend’s inbox is a whole other blog post for a whole other time). Greendipiti cards still give recipients their much-needed words of affirmation in a physical form, but are the greenest option for a greeting card in the world.
‘Regifting’ has always been associated with unwanted items or disappointing gestures, but perhaps we need to change the idea of getting rid of things that you no longer have use for. The greatest joy in a Greendipiti card is that it provides the recipient with a chance to give as well. Greendipiti cards are lovely, beautifully-made, and, most importantly, temporary. The recipient becomes the giver in a way that combines environmental and human sustainability: you hang onto one less thing in your life, gain one more opportunity to connect another person, give them a thoughtful and reuseable card, change behaviour, and make a positive impact.
PART 3 – THE COMMUNITY POTENTIAL | HOW DOES GREENDIPITI BUILD COMMUNITY?
Speaking of positive impact, the biodegradable sleeve on a Greendipiti card protects the card on its first journey to the first owner, and the amount of paper wasted is dramatically reduced. If we start to introduce a reusable card into the mix, we can give our friends and community the chance to reduce their carbon footprint, save paper and trees and look pretty darn smart in the process.
The tradition of giving greeting cards has the potential to be as meaningful an expression of personal affection for another person as there is. Such a simple act of kindness is deeply ingrained in many cultures and this tradition will likely continue as a means of sustaining relationships and as a token of appreciation and acknowledgement. While our kindness should be infinite, we know that trees are not, so such a gesture of giving must be matched with a need for us to reduce our paper consumption.
Greendipiti cards are made using upcycled fabric and materials and can be given infinitely. These cards promote connection between friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers (friends of friends of friends). They create history and have the potential to establish tradition with each gift. In every card – and the connective giving that follows its arrival – there is the potential for important conversations to occur between giver/receiver on topics including: over-consumption, sustainability, love, tradition, and creativity.
THE CLOSER | SUSTAINING PEOPLE AND PLANET
In my humble opinion, if there was a greeting card contest, these cards could win a blue ribbon for sustainability: reusable cards made from recycled materials, with the sole purpose of unlimited ‘give agains’ – amazing!
A friend of Tara and I, Tlell, sent me a Greendipiti card to celebrate the birth of my son, Miles. It will soon be sent along to another friend for a birthday celebration and stories of sustainability, creativity, giving, and Greendipiti will certainly follow its arrival.
In Greendipiti I see so many of The Potentiality‘s competencies at play: Tara is a leader, greeting cards realize the potential of meaningful communication, and cards are often adapted to suit their audiences. At the heart of this project, though, are creativity (no more need be said about the wonderful creativity of Greendipiti) and collaboration – Tara connects people who wouldn’t otherwise be connected. People have an opportunity to share a tradition giving/receiving experience and then build on it by inviting others to participate as well.
Empathetic, kind and connecting communities are build and made strong by simple innovations like Tara Drage’s Greendipiti.