A little bio…
Reesa Woodman
I am Christian, WAHM to three children, wife to a CPA. We home school our two oldest children who are twelve and ten years old. Our youngest, who is 19 months old, is driving force behind this company because without her, my eyes would only be half open.
Before June of 2007 I did not recycle. I admit it. So as you can imagine I did not incorporate any other environmental friendly tactics into our family’s lifestyle. That month, I started a recipe book for my SIL who was getting married later that year. I was not such a great cook at the time and was getting tired of the same old meals each month so I started cooking some of the recipes as they came in. That led me to realize that I needed spices and other ingredients that I did not have. That led me to several local health food stores which led me to cloth shopping bags and the recycling bins outside their stores. My research then lead me to BPA free products, lead free dishes, parabens, composting, and so much more.
With my third pregnancy in 2008, I started looking into vaccines, cloth diapers, homemade wipes, and other products that would be safe for our baby during gestation as well as for her once she arrived. My eyes were opened and I felt a huge rush of guilt for the lack of knowledge I had when my older two were babies and toddlers. With that, Suburban Tree Hugger, LLC materialized.
Although the company (store and blog) officially began in May of 2009, I owned the website for a couple years prior to this. One night my husband and I were sitting around talking about the changes we were making. At that time, I was one of just a few using reusable bags at the grocery store – at least one of the few during my shopping visits.
Now, I see almost every buggy in the store has at least one reusable bag – which is awesome. We were killing ourselves to recycle everything – saving stuff until we were in the vicinity of recycling drop-offs. Now, the local elementary school has a single stream bin (Thank you!). Early on, I felt liked I was too crunchy granola for the suburbs of Atlanta, but not crunchy enough for the west coast, which helped inspire the name, Suburban Tree Hugger – somewhere in the middle. We are not perfect when it comes to being “green” but we are doing the best we can in the community in which we live. And we’re encouraged that our community is moving in the right direction.
