Courtesy of Nourish
By Susan Elise Campbell
Nourish Designs is a mission-based business that sells “gifts that give back.” The name perfectly reflects the desire of its owner, Betsy P. Seplowitz, to nourish and calm the mind and to help lift up local children with food insecurity with donations from the business.
Through this business model, to date she has provided nearly 306,000 meals to kids in need.
Seplowitz was selling her hand drawn circular designs online and at pop-ups and craft shows before making the move three years ago to a storefront at 87 Milton Avenue in Ballston Spa.
Drawing was something Seplowitz did at home on short breaks during her busy days as a mother of young children. She does not have an art background like her husband, who has a photography business that she helps to market.
But she does have a retail background that goes back to childhood on the family farm.
“My father had a pumpkin business,” said Seplowitz. “He told me and my sisters, ‘here is five acres. I’ll plant, you sow.’”
The girls sold pumpkins on a main road just outside of Vermont and managed their business all through middle school and high school, she said.
“I always thought it would be fun to have a little retail shop someday, but the business evolved later out of my mission to provide funding for meals for kids,” she said.
Seplowitz had been volunteering for her kids’ school, going down to the food bank in Albany to picking up food and drop it off back at the school, she said. The food is repacked and distributed to needy schoolchildren as part of the school’s BackPack Program.
“I thought, how many kids can really need this much food,” she said.
She quickly learned that statistic was one in six children in the Saratoga area.
“Weekends are hard for these children because they do not have enough to eat at home,” she said. “How can these kids be their best selves, be a good friend, follow the rules, learn, and grow emotionally and physically when they are hungry?”
“It broke my heart because my kids have a full refrigerator and a full pantry,” she said. “If we can break that cycle and give hungry young children the support they need, maybe by middle school they have a network of friends and their grades won’t suffer.”
Seplowitz has a degree in cultural archeology, which studies how different societies live, work, eat, and build relationships. Her career was in development, donor relations, and volunteer management for a college and a museum, and she has sat on the boards of many non-profits.
With all her experience and volunteerism, she chose food insecurity for children as her cause because she felt she could make the “biggest and most immediate impact in our communities,” she said.
“Donations from Nourish Designs go to the regional food bank, which allocates to programs that support food for children, including the BackPack program,” she said.
There are approximately 10,000 BackPack Programs across the nation hosted by Feeding America.
Seplowitz was already selling her designs to friends and family when she got involved in this cause. During the pandemic, small groups gathered by videoconference to talk about and purchase her products. Seplowitz was able to expand her customer base as her creations traveled as gifts around the country.
But customers were pressing for a storefront and Seplowitz knew it was time to go back to work with a brick and mortar business. In 2021, in the middle of the pandemic, there was plenty of rental space available.
“I knew 87 Milton Avenue would be ideal,” she said. “The businesses on that corner have been very supportive and hosted pop-ups for me at their shops.”
Designs Seplowitz initially drew as wall décor and notecards became designs for tee shirts, hoodies, and tote bags using local printers. The next step was larger, custom orders for not-for-profit organizations, various fundraisers, and schools, including tee shirts for Saratoga’s Snack Pack program.
Many years ago Seplowitz discovered how “drawing repetitive patterns of lines and dots swept the cobwebs out” of her mind, she said. Her artwork evolved into freehand circles, or mandalas, drawn in ink because it focused her mind and forced her “to deal with a mistake.”
Today Nourish Designs helps customers achieve greater peace of mind through art in two ways. Seplowitz packages how-to mandala drawing kits and has free, downloadable designs to color. She also teaches courses in pattern making and mindful drawing.
About half the items sold at Nourish Designs are creations by its owner. The other half are books and coloring books, paint, markers and other art supplies, candles, towels and other home goods, and toys from craftspeople she is “very particular about,”she said.
Seplowitz said she is challenged by “keeping all the balls in the air,” but has “dreams of continuing to grow and maybe become a national brand.”
Learn more at nourishdesigns.com.