Spiral Foundation: Turning trash into gifts that raise money for those in need

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Before there was Tom’s Shoes or Ethos Water, there was the Spiral Foundation.

The Spiral Foundation, a local non-profit, provides economic opportunities for people in third world countries by helping them create artisan goods out of recycled material and then selling those goods here in the states.

For sale is everything from a luggage tag holder made from recycled plastic to serving dishes made out of newspaper and magazine pages or Christmas ornaments made from bottles and cans.

“Artisans recycle discarded materials and transform these discarded materials in beautiful and useful and happy items,” said Marichia Simcik, the organization’s founder.

Spiral is among hundreds of socially responsible gifting companies that are hoping to make this Holiday season little more about charity than materialism.

“Our items are 100 percent eco-gift and they are 100 percent made with the heart and the proceeds return with a big heart to many in need,” Simcik said.

They have raised $1.8 million since they were

The Spiral Foundation was born in 1997 after Simcik and her husband, took a trip to Vietnam and realized the devastation that remained there from the Vietnam War.

She and her husband set up a workshop in Hue, Vietnam, an area that was bombed during the war, and began to use the proceeds to pay for heart surgeries for children born with congenital heart defects as a result of the bombings.

“It wasn’t something that belonged in the past it was something still so present,” Simcik said. “We funded more than 350 heart surgeries in an area near the city of Hue.”

The foundation now has workshops throughout Vietnam and Nepal and has a program set up with African refugees in Italy. Beneficiaries are often disabled, blind, or unable to work anywhere else. They are taught the skills to make artisan crafts and they gather the resources and produce the goods themselves.

Simcik then sells the goods online and at two yearly holiday sales that take place at her home. She sends the proceeds directly back to the people that made them or to humanitarian aid projects in their cities.

One of the most popular items at Spiral are bright colorful baskets that can be used as serving dishes or catchalls at a back door.

“This is a basket, which is made in Nepal, and it is made completely out of discarded plastic wrappers,” Simcik said. “These wrappers are wound around a piece of twine, a string of twine and then put together with some plastic, which is crocheted around the twine.”

They also sell silver baskets that are made using the inside of potato chip bags.

Among other goods are bracelets and earrings made from old tire rubber, bookmarks made from material discarded at a local factory, purses and luggage made from flattened soda cans.

“Why buy a luggage tag made out of plastic when you can buy one made out of recycled plastic and all the money returns to the beneficiaries?” Simcik said.

John Hagelberg has been bringing his daughter to the Spiral sale for years.  Despite having worked for municipal recycling programs in the past, he said he has never seen such a positive reuse of materials.

“When I walk in here, my heart goes, and my eyes and my heart goes, ‘Wow, this is so cool,’” he said. “In this country recycling is taking old plastic bottles and tin cans and aluminum cans and melting them down and turning them into new cans and bottles. But here we see them taking recyclable trash and turning it into art.

“The creativity and how low tech it is, how it serves different social and personal needs of people. Gives money, gives them something to do, reduces trash and I love that.”

Hagelberg’s daughter, Julia, said Spiral has inspired her to look for opportunities to serve others. She plans to travel to Nepal with her high school class later this year to teach English.

The next Spiral sale will be taking place Dec. 8 ­– 9 at Simcik’s home at 211 Vance Street, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. For more information please visit spiralfoundation.org.