After a devastating earthquake struck Nepal in 2015, two broke but passionate college students (Lanna and Saroj – now founders of Impact Everything) came together with their friends to fundraise and help towards disaster relief. From lemonade stands, to car washes in the summer, to a 5K in fall they were able to raise $10,000 with the help of their friends and the local community. Saroj at this point was now a recent graduate of Civil Engineering from the University of Connecticut. Backed up with passion and wanting to directly utilize his new knowledge, he decided to fly directly to Nepal and put his skills to the test. After months of trial and error, he managed to use all of the funds to reconstruct a primary school in Ramche, Nepal that had been torn down after the earthquake.

During this time, Lanna was back in America working 9-5 as a chemist by day and learning about social entrepreneurship by night. Driven to continue to help the Nepal project and become part of the movement of using business as a force for good she started developing an idea for a shop where every product would give back to a cause. The first product for this shop became a hemp backpack that Saroj returned with from his volunteer trip to Nepal. Each backpack sold would fund one day of education, helping to sustain the school that was recently built.

And that’s how it all started! One product, one table, one pop-up shop at a time. As they continued to travel and spread this concept, Lanna and Saroj collected more and more products that gave back along the way. A combination of these beginning products and collaboration with other social entrepreneurs eventually led to the opening of their first storefront shop 2017 in Rhode Island called Impact Everything. It was the first of its kind. Every purchase had a purpose.

The mission of this shop was to teach as many people as possible how to live an impactful lifestyle. It featured over 1,000 products that would be used in one’s everyday life (bath and body, clothing, housewares, accessories, and more) where every single product served a purpose in helping people or the planet. The goal was to show people that you don’t have to cause harm (intentional or non-intentional) behind what you use, eat, wear everyday. Rather, one can find products in all categories of their life that make a positive impact. In total Impact Everything’s products helped 12 different causes and affected 55 countries. 26,118 purchases were made causing ripple effects of change.

These were how most of the days of the year were spent, atleast on weekdays. Weekends were also dedicated to hosting educational events and local volunteering activities, over 70 in total since opening. During each summer, Saroj and Lanna would host volunteer abroad trips, taking 15-20 customers on a journey, giving them the chance to give back directly and see themselves the impact behind select products.

Impact was also an abbreviated version of how the collection of products gave back. A short explanation of this is below, in case you want to imply this into your own life. Everyone has the ability to impact everything!