The launch of Noel Botanicals is both exciting and emotional for me. When our daughter, Noelle, was born 11 weeks early in 2002, we both barely survived the experience. She was so tiny, yet had this stubborn fight that she still has to this very day! The challenges Matt and I would face as parents and advocates for Noelle would often be more than we felt equipped to handle. We would go on a difficult journey to help her receive quality education that spoke to how she learned. While she struggled with traditional learning, she because unusually brilliant with understanding all the things of nature: animals, insects, flowers, birds and plants.
Just last year, we had an unexpected spring snow. When I opened the door to look outside, a frightened bird flew into the house. She was the first person I called for help. Within 10 minutes, she had captured the bird, in her hands. As I went to open the door to let that one out, another flew in! Being the master she is, that one was caught in only a few minutes!
Noelle passionately lives her life connected to nature and has an uncanny ability to understand the minds and needs of creatures. I have often said, if her ability to gently commune with nature could be bottled up, it would change the world.
2020 was a turning point professionally for me in so many ways. I had built a successful restaurant business that was on the brink of certain disaster. It changed the way I saw the world of business. Staying still and not growing was almost a bigger risk that trying new things. I was challenged to the core to do the things on my heart…to do ALL the things.
It was during that time that I literally woke up early one morning and knew creating this line was what we needed to do. I sketched and created away. By the time Noelle and Matt had woken up, I was ready to not only present the idea, but have them give input and direction. They both loved it and were one board! Within weeks, we transformed a portion of an outbuilding on the farm to a production facility and were ready to make the products. Wes and Cole were home for the semester doing college online and helped us. In fact, our first batch of hand cream was a complete Seger family experience!
It is truly a full circle, beautiful, experience that through Noel Botanicals, we will be giving a portion of our revenue to experiential learning opportunities in nature for children and adults with learning disabilities.