Seven Years and Counting…
Can you believe it! Seven years ago, with a sweet five-month-old baby in my arms and a vision in my heart, Grateful Grahams was born. As I sit here reminiscing on those early years, I find that I am grateful for where the journey has taken me, a journey which has included maybe as many struggles as it has smiles!
Our first delivery was to Danny Korman, who had started Park + Vine. Danny was (and remains) a visionary who pushed the edges with his small environmentally attuned retail store in downtown Cincinnati. The day he called to order more grahams was the day I really started to believe in this product. It was also the day I started to really believe in myself and this dream. I’m pretty sure I cried my eyes out as I filled that order! Thank you Danny – I hope you know how much you mean to me.
We grew from that first store by building a community of mom & pop stores, local coffee shops, and other small outlets. We’ve now been able to add a few national retailers and today Grateful Grahams is in over 155 regional stores!
My vision has always been about more than making a delicious, organic treat. Grateful Grahams was also about making connections and sharing gratitude. Why Gratitude? Because gratitude, like a great cookie, touches something at the core of all of us. Something pure and satisfying. Something that can connect us in a simple but truthful way. It may be a simple cookie, but I believe it has the potential to open us to so much more.
And Grateful Grahams continues to follow this vision.
This vision has now led us into The Gratitude Collective. This is an assembly of business ventures, community-driven projects, and crazy ideas that include: The Kitchen Convos, Grateful Hall, The Good People Festival and the biggest of all – The Incubator Kitchen Collective, a new non-profit organization made up of three commercial kitchens (and growing!), business mentorship, and community support all focused on promoting the success of food entrepreneurs. And Grateful Grahams is the cornerstone of it all.
At seven years, it continues to be challenging, surprising, and rewarding. Grateful Grahams and The Gratitude Collective are now a part of an exciting food community and we, myself and this company, find ourselves looking at even more opportunities to create connections that will develop a thriving and sustainable regional food economy. We are excited to be a part of this with leadership, partnerships, and the passion to help make it happen. 2017 looks to be an exciting year.
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You’ll see on every one of our cookie bags the question: “What are you grateful for?” And that is what it is all about for us. Because a cookie without gratitude is well, just another cookie. And we never want to be just another cookie.
Made it to the end of this? Thank you for that commitment! To mark the occasion and to thank you for your support, we are offering 20% off all orders on our website from today, April 18th until May 2nd. Just enter the coupon code – “ANNIVERSARY7” when you place an order online.
In Gratitude,
Rachel DesRochers
Chief Gratitude Officer
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