A dream come true
As long as I can remember I’ve always had a passion for animals. This passion naturally manifested itself in my dream to be a veterinarian. As a child I played vet with my stuffed animals and as I got older I learned all I could about my future career. When I turned 14 I had the opportunity through my high school to shadow a vet to see what a typical day was like. Everything was going great until I saw an older cat getting its teeth cleaned. I became light headed as I watched the procedure and I guess I passed out as my next recollection was someone offering me juice on the curb outside the office in the fresh air. At that point I realized this was not the job for me.
Even though I didn’t have the stomach to be a vet I still wanted to help animals. I was going to start volunteering in shelters, but the moment I stepped through those doors I wanted them ALL. It didn’t matter the size or species, I needed to take all of these animals home.
Through many years of working and gaining experience in the corporate world, I decided I needed to follow my dream and find a way to help animals from a distance. And this is where the idea for Lucky Jack began.
Lucky Jack is a line of high quality purses and bags designed by yours truly that give back to local animal shelters. While a portion of proceeds go to helping pets in local shelters, we wanted to make it real for Lucky Jack customers. For every small purse that is purchased we will donate one bag of dog food (enough to feed a small to medium sized dog for one month) to a local shelter. The larger the purse you purchase, the larger the donation we will make to an animal shelter. That way our customers know that they can shop with a purpose and support a great cause!
I began this journey diving in head first learning everything I needed to know about how to manufacture a product and building the business from the ground up. It has been an amazing journey taking me from sketching purse designs when inspiration hits me, to materials sourcing in NYC and finally a finished product coming in September 2016. The whole process has taken about a year and I’ve been very hands on and involved in every step. With my own designs, I have incorporated flat nylon webbing (similar to a dog collar) as a design element in all of my pieces as a subtle reminder of the animals you’re helping by purchasing a Lucky Jack purse or bag. Currently I am focused on building a product line of women’s purses and bags, but we’ll expand to offer a variety of bags for men and children in the future.
Chasing my dream has been a wild ride and I can’t wait to see where Lucky Jack takes me next! A huge thank you to everyone that has been so supportive along the way.
