Today we’d like to introduce you to Holly Thorpe and Amandine Paran.
Holly and Amandine, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Last year we signed up for the Key Biscayne Children’s Business Fair and had to think of a business to create. We had to come up with a creative and unique product to sell at the fair. One day while at the beach and picking up so many plastic bottle caps and other plastic items, we got the idea that we needed to use these plastic bottle caps for something good. While thinking about ideas of how we can use the plastic we were picking up, we saw so many brown coconuts on the ground and that’s how the idea of KB Beach Bunnies was born. We wanted to clean, recycle, and create. We knew we wanted our business to offer something that solves a problem, gives back to the community, and educates people to take care of our planet, oceans, and marine life.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been a pretty smooth road. The only real struggle is seeing how much plastic trash is around. It’s everywhere and you clean it up and then there is more and more. We try to encourage using reusable water bottles but people keep buying plastic. They open the bottle, throw the cap on the floor, and when they are done, just toss it on the ground. It’s a bit sad and it is hard to change people’s habits but we will keep trying because our planet and ocean is drowning in plastic.
Please tell us about KB Beach Bunnies.
KB Beach Bunnies is mostly a beach/community clean up a group that creates art from plastic trash. We are known for our beach bunnies, which we create using bottle caps, plastic bottles, and other plastic items that we clean up.
What sets us apart? Our bunnies are unique and our group is made up of six girls ages 10 -13. Holly is an advocate for electric school buses and has spoken to the school board about the impact and dangers of CO2 pollution from diesel school buses. She was able to get the school district to apply for Florida’s VW settlement fund for school buses and keeps educating about not idling to reduce the CO2 pollution and how important it is for schools to switch to electric school buses for both our planet’s health and student/bus driver health. Lilly is an advocate for marine life and ocean reefs. She has researched the damaging effects of chemical sunscreens and microplastics. She advocates for the use of mineral sunscreen and banning chemical sunscreens. Amandine and Charlotte love their community and work fiercely to make it a better place. They advocate for having more trash bins available, recycling, and not being wasteful. Aliani and Ali love the ocean and art. They work hard to keep our oceans clean. Together we hope that we inspire more kids, more adults, and our community to be an ocean ally and start making changes to reduce plastic and co2 pollution.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Wanting to do good and inspire others to do the same.
Pricing:
- Beach Bunny $20
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