giving when you have little to give.
When I started Moustache, I really wanted the business to be a vehicle to somehow give back to the community. But being such a small start-up founded on a 20-year-old kids saving’s, working 3-4 jobs to get this dream off the ground, we have always bootstrapped & had to be super creative with everything we’ve done.
Being small means I am always faced with the question “How can we help others with the little resources we have?”. What is it they say? If you have much, give of your wealth. If you have little, give of your heart.
Thus, every year since Moustache was incepted 4 years ago, I have spent each Christmas baking Moustache cookies & delivering them to people who deserve a little treat.
Last week a box of our cookies were given to a lady who was with her children, rummaging through a bin for food. When she was given the cookies, she started crying because her kids had a shared lunch the next day & she had nothing to bring. But now, her kids had a big box of yummy cookies (yes, I just complimented my own cookies as being yummy).
Last year, a woman and a group of her friends came into our tiny little original store & bought a whole heap of cookies & dined in (despite it being super cramped and tiny!). At the end, the woman gave me a hug & through tears thanked me – she was a mother with cancer whom I’d written an encouraging letter to alongside a box of cookies last Christmas. She was about to go into hospital that day but very much wanted to come visit me in person. And through my own tears, I wished her thank you & bid her good luck. Two strangers, connected by something as simple as a cookie.
There are so many stories I see every year on Christmas – people who were burgled Christmas morning, people who lost their daughter to illness, solo mothers with 6 children struggling to put food on the table let alone have any treats on Christmas Day…good people going through bad times.
There are so many stories…yet I don’t know them yet. So if you know of anyone in Auckland who deserves a box of cookies on Christmas Day then please let me know as it would be my absolute honour to bake for them. You can nominate them by emailing deanna@moustache.co.nz or PM me via facebook. I may not be able to reply to everybody but I will do my utmost to visit as many homes as possible.
However, if you don’t have anyone to nominate, you can also help by visiting our online store http://www.moustache.co.nz and pre-purchase a cookie for a family in need (just $3.50). Every cookie pre-purchased, Moustache will match the donation. These cookies will directly go towards the people we will be visiting on Christmas Day.
I know…it may seem a minuscule way of giving…but it is my own minuscule way of giving for now until I grow to be a big strong business.
But man, I was on my way to donate about $600 worth of Moustache cookies to the Auckland City Mission when I got stuck in that new Bus Lane on Hobson Street that is impossible to get out of in peak hour bumper-to-bumper traffic ’cause nobody wants to let you in, resulting in me getting a $150 fine JUST as I was about to approach the City Mission.
All my friends say I have the worst luck. If i ever live outside the law for even a second, like forrealz, I swear I’m a pretty good kid but if MY LITTLE TOE SO MUCH AS STEPS out of line, I will most certainly get punished for it (yet somehow, Donald Trump, quite possibly one of the worst human beings ever, is President of the United States). Like once I was driving in a friends car which was manual and was getting used to the different clutch right so I was revving to take off at the traffic lights but made a skid sound & next thing you know WOoOooOOooOO, cop pulls me over for DRAG RACING.
This has made me disproportionately scared of other “crimes” i might commit. Okay so the other month I was positively despo for an apple (as you do). I was at Countdown & ended up eating one of those apples in the “Free Fruit for Children” bins they have. And omg I am NEVER doing that again because I was almost at nervous breakdown thinking “Deanna, you are living outside the law….the free fruit is FOR CHILDREN ONLY!!”. My anxiety meant that the apple was not nearly as tasty as it should’ve been. I am sorry Countdown. Please invoice me for the apple.
It is okay. It’s coming to the end of the year. It will soon be a new year. No more pullovers. No more hungus fines. No more illegal apples.
But YES to cookies to those who deserve a treat on Christmas Day.
PM me. We want to help – even if it’s minuscule.
Much love,
De & Team Mo x
p.s seriously my anxiety that I always get in trouble for the most trivial things is even causing me to get scared that now since I’ve publicly admitted to eating the apple, that Countdown are going to hunt me down about the apple. GOIZ I’M SORRY OKAY. I WAS WEAK.
youngtrepreneur 