Oct. 18, 2019 "Toronto startup grows and gives back with weighted blankets": Today I found this article in the Star Metro. It's sponsored content:
Lior Ohayon, co-founder of Hush Blankets, first learned about the soothing qualities of weighted blankets while working at a camp for kids with special needs in 2011. The camp’s “stimulation room” had a weighted blanket to help put the kids at ease.
"It was supposed to make them feel warm and secure, like they were back in the womb,” Ohayon says. So he tried it himself. “It felt incredible,” he says. “I found myself sneaking back into the room to use it.”
Fast forward a few years. Ohayon had put in two years at university and left to start his own software company. While out socializing, he ran into Aaron Spivak, who had coincidentally also logged two years of university before launching a successful chain of juice kitchens.
Both of their businesses were pretty much running themselves, so the serial entrepreneurs came up with the idea of creating and marketing a premium weighted blanket. “You don’t really have to have special needs to enjoy the effects of weighted blankets,” Spivak says. “If you have insomnia or you’re just stressed out, they can help.”
Weighted blankets provide Deep Touch Pressure Stimulation (DTPS), adds Ohayon. “It sounds fancy, but it just refers to any form of deep pressure that’s exerted equally across the body,” he explains. That pressure encourages your body to release serotonin, relieving stress and allowing for a deeper more restful sleep.
There were already weighted blankets on the market, but Spivak and Ohayon found them lacking. The little plastic beads that filled them weren’t durable and had a propensity to shift in the night so the weight wasn’t evenly distributed. By creating a version that used glass microbeads and quilted pockets, they were able to overcome these problems.
In 2018, the duo launched their Hush Blankets online. “We sold out pretty much month over month for eight consecutive months,” says Spivak.
Even in those early days, though, they incorporated a giving program aimed at supplying weighted blankets to the homeless, children in shelters and kids with disabilities. “There wasn’t a real structure to the program — we did it on our own time,” says Spivak. “But we felt it was important to donate as much as possible.”
This spring, both Hush Blankets and the company’s Give Back program got a major boost when Spivak and Ohayon appeared on the popular CBC television program Dragons’ Den.
“Hush did amazing in the Den,” says Dragon Lane Merrifield. “They came in prepared, they knew their numbers and the value they brought to people’s lives. They had a purpose and a mission to what they were doing.”
Apart from snagging a $400,000 investment from the Dragons, Hush received a $100,000 contribution from Desjardins through their GoodSpark program. Open to candidates on Dragons’ Den, GoodSpark aims to help entrepreneurs with a social purpose.
As Canada’s largest financial cooperative, giving back is an essential part of business for Desjardins. Giving a helping hand to Hush Blanket’s Give Back program and the people it serves was a natural fit for GoodSpark.
For Spivak and Ohayon, the GoodSpark grant was an unexpected and welcome offshoot of their TV debut. The company had previously given away one adult blanket for every 10 sold and one child’s blanket for every five purchased.
Its goal now is to double those numbers by 2020. “We’re working with 25 charities now, most of them in the Toronto area,” says Spivak. “We’re over the moon that Desjardins decided to empower us with this money. We’re going to be able to help so many more people in need. The impact will be tremendous.”
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/toronto-star/20191019/283433488308173
Oct. 24, 2019 "Music business's guardian angel now needs a hand": Today I found this article by Nick Krewan in the Star Metro:
Two-and-a-half years ago, Bill Bell, long-time guitarist for Tom Cochrane, was lying on the floor of his Toronto home in the midst of a nervous breakdown when he received the call that changed his life.
Bell’s friend, music executive Allan Reid, had phoned to check in on him and recommended that he reach out to the Unison Benevolent Fund for help.
“In my mind, I didn’t feel I should reach out to Unison because I should take care of it myself, “Bell, 51, says. “And Allan said, ‘No you should call Unison, because they’ll help you and they’ll get you therapy right away.’
I listened to Allan in my dark moment and, within two days, they had me into therapy. I’m really grateful for that because Unison gave me a sense that someone was there and that they cared.”
John Cody, a Montreal based songwriter who has endured 11 surgeries in five years due to severe illnesses that include cancer, autoimmune degenerative disease and Gilbert’s syndrome, is also grateful for the lifeline that Unison has provided.
“When I became disabled it took me two to three years to receive disability benefits,” Cody says. “If it wasn’t for Unison sending me grocery cards I wouldn’t eat, period.”
Bell and Cody are just two of the more than 800 people who have received relief from the fund, a non-profit charity providing emergency relief and counselling to the Canadian music community since 2011.
Or as Alan Doyle, former frontman for Great Big Sea, describes it: “a safety net for musicians who really don’t have another one.”
Actually, Unison doesn’t help just artists and those who play an instrument: any music industry professional who has earned 55 per cent of their income from music-related activity for a minimum of two consecutive years qualifies for relief.
Applications and requests are strictly confidential and the list of qualifying professions — which can be viewed at unisonfund.ca — encompasses booking agents, marketers, promoters, road technicians and tour operators, to name a few.
But clearly being a musician is among the most vulnerable of vocations.
“There’s no stability in an artist’s life,” Bell says. “When you work a 9-to-5 job, you have health benefits. I have a friend who has a government job who just took three months off for a paid mental health leave.
“As an artist, you have to keep working through your hard times in order to pay the rent.”
Doyle echoes the concern. “Most people can go to their jobs and function fine if they suffer a broken pinky,” he says. “If a pianist or a guitarist breaks their pinky, they’re off work for six months. A singer with a node is off for a year.
“There’s no employment insurance for musicians, so the Unison fund is desperately needed.”
Cody, whose larynx was partially removed in 2017, has been unable to work.
“Unison helps you take care of doctors and surgeries and rent, which is essential when going through hard times. I don’t think I’d survive without help from Unison. I’ve been in counselling for several months and I need it.”
Unison was founded in 2009 by a pair of veteran music industry executives, Catherine Saxberg and Jodie Ferneyhough, in response to the death of Haydain Neale, founder of the Juno Award winning group Jacksoul.
Neale was critically injured in a 2007 auto accident in Toronto and died two years later of lung cancer.
It took a while to get established: the charity didn’t offer counselling services until
2011 and has only been providing monetary aid since 2015, when the goal of establishing a $900,000 endowment fund was reached through donations.
In 2019 alone, 71 per cent of the music community members who applied to Unison received counselling services, with five per cent suffering from urgent mental health situations; 29 per cent have received financial assistance.
But Unison itself may be facing a crisis.
Executive director Amanda Power says 2019 donations are “currently sitting at 44 per cent of our expected donation revenue to date. The amount going out the door for allocations — counselling and financial assistance — versus being donated is approximately 2:1.”
On the other hand, demand for Unison’s programs is growing by an average of 30 per cent a year, spurred in part by such factors as consumers favouring music streaming over music ownership, resulting in a loss of sales income to artists and songwriters.
“We are currently trending to exceed that percentage in 2019,” says Power.
Although music industry businesses have been generous with donations and fundraisers, Power says the time has come to look outside the field.
https://www.pressreader.com/canada/starmetro-toronto/20191024/281668256759756
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