TOTES TO TOOT ABOUT
Jamestown woman’s reusable bags can be easily stored
mercury
page 10
DECEMBER 9-DECEMBER 15, 2009
BY JENNIFER NICOLE SULLIVAN
When Karen de Bruin walked
into a grocery store 2½ years
ago and realized she had forgotten her reusable shopping bag,
she started thinking. Sure, she
could buy another one of those
boxy, ugly green reusable bags
sold at most grocery stores that
are impossible to fold up and
throw into your handbag. But
why not create an attractive,
reusable bag that can easily fold
up?
And from there, the poksak™
was born.
The poksak™ — co-founded
by de Bruin of Jamestown and
her parents Andre and Estelle
de Bruin of Hardeeville, S.C. —
is a large, affordable, reusable
bag made of woven polyester
that conveniently folds back
into an attached, iPod-sized
pouch — like a small joey hiding in its mama’s pouch, hence
the kangaroo on the company’s
logo.
The idea for the clever pouch
design was modeled after some
of the reusable bags that de
Bruin, 37, saw while pursuing
her Ph.D. in Paris where everyone, she said, always used
reusable bags instead of ecounfriendly bags — in France
you have to pay for plastic bags
at check-out lines. The name
poksak™ comes from the words
“pocket” and “sack,” but
reminds the de Bruins of an
Afrikaans word, a language
from the family’s native South
Africa.
“We only get one earth, one
chance,” said Dominique de
Bruin, 25, Karen’s sister who
works full-time for poksak™ in
South Carolina. “We have a
duty to keep our environment
safe and clean. We’re trying to
make a difference socially and
environmentally.”
But while the family business
(mostly run out of South Carolina) began as a venture to help
O’BRIEN’S
PUB
ekly
eradicate the use of environmentally hazardous plastic bags
that could wind up floating in
the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
in the North Pacific Ocean, the
for-profit company decided to
give back to the community.
This fall, the one-year-old poksak™ company teamed up with
the Orphan Foundation of
America to set up the Poksak™
Foster Scholarship to help foster children pay for university
tuition.
For every poksak™ purchased — at $3.99 it’s the cost of
a cup of gourmet coffee — the
company will donate 25 cents to
the foster fund. This holiday
season, poksak™ is running
their “Carry a poksak™, carry
an orphan” initiative to raise
$1,000 for the scholarship fund
— that’s 4,000 poksaks that need
to find their way into shoppers’
hands and Christmas stockings.
For a purchase of five poksaks
online, the company donates $2.
Poksak™ recently began
approaching shops in
Jamestown and Newport to car-
Family
Frie
Atmosp ndly
here
We
ent
Entertainm
“Best
ry holiday dispensers full of
magenta and
green bags
(they’re also
available in
yellow, green
and navy blue).
Currently
they’re available at Le Petit
Gourmet adjacent to Newport
Wine Cellar, 26
Bellevue Ave., Newport.
Poksak also makes pro- Hot pockets. Fold up the poksak into a
motional bags co-brand- little pouch that fits into your jacket pocket
ed with other company or handbag. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
logos.
Rhode Island, who’s always
When poksak™ awards its
dreamt of starting a school for
scholarships to students via
orphans in South Africa. “I’d be
OFA, poksak™ plans to post
their photos and bios onto their really happy if we could give
one scholarship by May. If we
Web site so customers can folcan give more, that would be
low the progress of the foster
great.”
child.
The colorful bags have
“The product is great. But
already been a hit at trade
what I really want is to help
shows. In Boulder, Colo., a boy
kids go to school,” said Karen
de Bruin, associate professor of around 6 years old bought his
very own magenta poksak™ as
literature at the University of
his parents looked on from a
distance.
“He loved the idea. And he got
it,”
Karen de Bruin said. “These
Sushi Bar in Newport”
kids get it. That’s why we have
so much hope.”
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