Kiters For Communities – Upcycling old kites project
Bring (or mail) those old kites taking up room in your garage or closet to us in Cabarete! Our team of creative tailors can transform them into amazing stylish bags. Why? Because it’s so much better than putting your old gear into a landfill. Upcycling old kites with us is easy.
How it works
- Get your old kite to Cabarete. You can bring it with you or send it to our freight forwarder in Miami.
- Choose a bag style (messenger or beach)
- We make you a free bag and use the rest of the material for building cute products and keeping our team employed.
About Kiters For Communities: Upcycling old kites into awesome bags
The Kiters For Communities (K4C) concept began in 2004 when Laurel started re-using old kites broken during kiteboarding lessons here in Cabarete at LEK to make bags. In 2006, production moved from Florida to Dominican Republic. That’s when Laurel began working with Soniel, a delightful Haitian tailor. In the spring of 2010, Laurel traveled to Cape Haitian, Haiti for Soniel’s wedding. Seeing the extreme poverty in Haiti firsthand made Laurel want to do more.
With this purpose in mind, when Pete joined the team in the summer of 2010 together they transformed the kite bag program into a lovely little social business. Here’s how it works. First, the raw materials get donated by kiters like you, and by LEK kiteboarding school. Then, the tailors work their magic, and earn good money by making bags out of the kites. Finally, K4C sells the bags – investing the income back into educational and food programs for the community. To this end, we all have a great opportunity to turn our trash into treasure and help families like Maxon’s (photo below.)
Please get in touch with the Laurel Eastman Kiteboarding Cabarete team to learn more about trading your old kites, upcycling old kites, and becoming part of this great project by donating gear.
