www.happynapkins.com
Happy Napkins is a supporter of "Rachel's Kids Inc" Please read the article written about Happy Napkins.
Happy Napkins Pass the smiles
Karen Pulfer Focht
The Commercial Appeal
Susan Leigh, owner of Happy Napkins Inc., sets out a display of her napkins at Kroger. Marketing manager Kenneth Porter accompanies her.
'It's all about that element of helping one another'
By Blair Dedrick
Special to The Commercial Appeal
October 16, 2006
The little girl was having yet another bad day at school when she opened her lunch box and immediately felt better: Her mom had sent her a handwritten note on her napkin that declared, "Always remember how wonderful you are."
The little girl is a woman of 23 now, and the mother has turned the daily love-notes to her daughter into a business, Happy Napkins.
"The world needs a Happy Napkin," said Susan Leigh, founder and president of the company as well as mother of three.
Happy Napkins are prefolded two-ply white dinner napkins that have loving and supportive messages printed on the inside, similar to a greeting card. Each napkin in the package has a different message, including "When I count my blessings, I count you twice" and "The world is a better place because of you."
The 12-napkin pack retails for $2.99 and can be found at Rachel's Flower Shop as well as local Kroger and Super Lo Foods stores.
Leigh, 53, became a foster parent and then adoptive parent to Katri Leigh when the girl was 3. Katri had attention-deficit disorder, which made it hard for her to socialize normally. Leigh began writing the notes as a way to connect during the school day, and Katri's problems slowly faded away.
"I just thought if it worked in our situation, it would work in others," Leigh said. "Napkins are a very simple way of telling someone, 'you're special to me.' "
Marketing manager for Happy Napkins, Kenneth Porter tells of a luncheon for professors at Southwest Tennessee Community College where a serious and unsmiling professor received a Happy Napkin that read, "You are the greatest."
"He was so excited," Porter said. "He started grinning -- it was as though it wasn't a commercial product, it was just for him."
Happy Napkins has sold about 1,400 packages, but Porter and Leigh plan to keep expanding locally and nationally.
The two have a meeting set up at Kroger's national headquarters in Cincinnati this fall where they hope to sell the chain on Happy Napkins. Twenty-three Mid-South Kroger stores are ready to stock the product once Leigh and Porter finalize a hanging display.
Though the idea began with children, Porter and Leigh said Happy Napkins have no boundaries of age or gender.
In addition to children's lunch boxes, Leigh envisions Happy Napkins appearing at business luncheons, family picnics and at dinner tables. One division of FedEx already has used a special order of the napkins at a luncheon, although Leigh did have to pick out all the ones that said, "I love you just the way you are."
"It's all about that element of helping one another," Leigh said, explaining that the napkins make people smile and remember that they really are special.
Leigh has taken her helping philosophy one step further with Happy Napkins by donating a percentage of the profits to charities, especially local charities that help children.
"We are trying to support what they are already doing in bringing white, black and Hispanic children together so they can maybe forget those differences," she said.
Happy Napkins
Happy Napkins are paper napkins printed with loving and supportive messages, similar to the concept of a greeting card.
President, founder and CEO: Susan Leigh
Address: 1153 Whiting
Employees: 6
Phone: 366-0494
Web site: happynapkins.com
