Every city and town have those little hidden gems that people find themselves going to. It's no different in Ballston Spa with a small but impactful shop known as Nourish Designs. This store and its owner Betsy Phelps Seplowitz, help both Ballston Spa and the Capital Region, with its work with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.
Betsy’s work helps children who can't get meals outside of school and it does this by selling clothing, stickers, and bags with custom mandalas on them, designed by Betsy herself.
She said in an interview, "We sell one shirt at a time, and just keep sending support to the food bank.”
This all started years ago with Betsy drawing mandalas in her free time to destress, and more and more friends of hers would tell her to make something of it - and we can see she most definitely did! She used her skills to draw custom designs for schools in the Ballston Spa Central School District and it put her on the map. "I never had considered myself any kind of artist... so you never know what's gonna happen!" she says.
Betsy would gain lot of experience by working with the backpack program in her kids’ elementary school and it would teach her family a lot of things they would later use in their store. As a volunteer for the backpack program Betsy would pick food up from the Regional Foodbank and deliver it to one of the local elementary schools. Her daughter learned how to read a map to help her mother with those deliveries. Betsy has always had her family to support her.
One thing Betsy would like to do is stay local and make sure she helps people as much as she can. She decided to do this via expanding slowly and naturally. She said later in the interview.
"Eventually, I would like to expand geographically and start doing events further from the Capital District and work down into the Hudson Valley or out into western New York. I would like to be a national brand... But I'm trying not to grow too fast so I can continue to manage it."
Betsy's plans for the shop seem to be helping the store, seeing as how in 2021 she had gotten 25,000 meals to kids and one year later she's now at 126,600 and still counting!
This year, Betsy has added work from other artisans into the store. Some examples include bags made from wool suits and scarves made from Indian Saris. She has proven her creativity on every turn.
Nourish plans to help more children get the food they need, and if you’d like to help with that mission, you can find her at – www.nourishdesigns.com - with a plethora of nice shirts, hoodies, bags, and stickers, all with beautiful mandalas.
Nourish Designs also does custom work. You can find her at 87 Milton Ave, Ballston Spa, NY 12020 Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
