Our family has the fortune to take several vacations a year. One of the benefits of home-schooling our children is having the flexibility to travel to places where the actual events they learn about in their history lessons took place. There’s a big difference to the way a child answers a question about the Revolutionary War before and after they’ve seen an actual fort. When you talk about the importance of hunting and fishing to early settlers and they’ve held the arrowheads in their hands, and paddled a canoe, you know they’ve learned the lesson on a visceral level.
Recently my daughter has expressed concern about environmental issues and corporate responsibility. Not exactly a subject you’d think you be discussing with a boy-crazy girl, but I’m curious about her interest, and to answer her question, we did a little searching for a company the is. What we learned is that a company called Patagonia is so dedicated to the maintenance and improvement of the environment they donate 1% of the company’s sales to groups and organizations working to preserve the great outdoors. The more she read about them, the more she like what they were doing, and asked to purchase some of their gear for her summer abroad. We shopped the site, but not before checking Groupon to see if they had any coupons we could apply. Sure enough, we found that we could save as much as 30% off women’s apparel and shoes. And she found the perfect backpack, and lots of tops and tees to carry her through the two months she’ll be riding the rails in Europe. And it was so sweet of her to order matching fleece tops for her and the little sister who’ll miss her so much while she’s gone.
Patagonia products are made by the best artisans and are paid a fair living wage and get great company benefits. They are conscious about sourcing products that have been produced by environmentally sensitive suppliers around the globe. It felt really good to support Patagonia. Since she’s told her friends about Patagonia, they’ve all shopped there, too. It looks like we’ve raised a couple of great kids. If they have any say, companies like Patagonia will be around for a long time.
Juan Farr is an avid home blogger, with the goal of helping his readers find inspiration and ideas for their next project. He writes about everything from small design projects to large renovations. His goal is to help people transform their homes into something that reflects who they are.
