11/26/09: The winner of the Graze organic lunch bags is: school teacher Cynthia. I’ll have another lunch-related give-away next week, so stay tuned.

Another day; another give-away. I told you there would be more from the SF Green Festival ^[1].

As my roommate at the BlogHer ^[2] conference this past summer, Mindful Momma ^[3] Micaela Preston brought me a cute organic cotton sandwich bag from Graze Organic ^[4]. Unlike other sandwich and snack wraps, these bags contain no plastic coating or lining. Of course, you can’t put anything seriously messy inside (unless you wrap it first in wax paper), but it was important to the founders of the company not to have their children’s food in contact with plastic. In fact, the only plastic in the bags are the Velcro strips that keep them closed.

In addition to containing very little plastic, the bags are made from 100% organic cotton, hand silk screened with soy-based inks, and manufactured in the USA. And they contain words and brightly colored pictures of the foods that can go in each one.

Graze Organic produces cute cloth napkins as well.

So I was happy to see that Heather and Leslie, the founders of Graze Organic, had a booth at the Green Festival this year.

I asked them about their inspiration for creating the company and their feelings about plastic. This is what Leslie wrote back:

Hi Beth,

It was so nice to meet you as well!! We have been huge fans of your site for a couple of years now.
We would love to do a giveaway!! Sandwich, veggie & snack sounds great. I came across your site two years ago after I read an article in the Los Angeles Times about BPA. I have two children and immediately trashed all my tupperware. I then moved on to reading about plastic in landfills and how it affects our soil, water and oceans.

The Great Garbage Patch still keeps me up at night!! About 2 1/2 years ago my friend Heather (we’ve known each other since our kids were in nursery school. They are now 12 yr. olds) were on the phone talking about how we despised packing plastic baggies in our kids lunches. We were packing twelve baggies a day (we have four kids between us) We literally designed the bags over the phone. Heather can sew, so she made up a bag out of muslin. I am a former pre school teacher, so I thought… why not write the words of the contents for early reading skills for younger children. I can’t tell you how many people (to this day!!) say, “You should line them in plastic, so they are more useful.” For us it has never been an option. We were spending the extra money to buy organic fruits and vegetables for our kids and then sticking them in PLASTIC!!!

It’s been an amazing journey so far. We only launched our site in July and have gotten so much support!! People love what we’re doing. You are our hero and we would be honored to have our name on your site. Can’t wait. Let us know who wins and we will send a set off right away. Thanks for the opportunity, Beth!!

Warmest regards,
Heather & Leslie
graze™ organic/exit 14 mfg, LLC

www.grazeorganic.com ^[4]
www.twitter.com/grazeorganic ^[5]

because every bag matters™

Awesome.

For a chance to win one set of three lunch bags ^[6] with the words “Sandwich,” “Veggie,” and “Snack” printed on them, Leslie would like you to leave a comment letting her know what specific foods you would pack in each bag. How simple is that? I’ll choose a winner by the middle of next week, and Graze Organic will ship your bags directly to you.

While we can’t buy our way out of the environmental mess we have created, supporting companies that are trying to do the right thing is important. Please check out their site and let them know what you think.