mug's best friend

mug's best friend™ is a uke it forward® small business initiative of my nonprofit project in india -- survivor girl ukulele band (sgub.org). hello! my name is laurie kallevig, and for eight years prior to the pandemic i spent half of each year in india, working with girls in rescue shelter homes, teaching them how to play ukulele.
what a thrill it has been to withness these girls' joy in their musical journeys.

as these girls become adults and transition out of the shelter home, many of them face dire financial situations. for the past two years i've been steadily working on an idea -- a dream for a small business that would produce something handwoven with the finest materials and craftsmanship, something beautiful and functional, and most of all, something that would give these young women
life-changing economic opportunity. 

and this is it: mug's best friend™. coasters so cushy. so quiet. so cozy. so cool-looking. they're also coasters with a cause. and now koozies with a cause!!

currently all mug's best friend™ coasters and can's best friend™ koozies
are exclusively handcrafted by me here in the usa. but things are in motion for that to change.
i've been paying one of my top former ukulele students in kolkata india (who's now married and has a little boy!) to learn to weave. she is producing beautiful work, and is beginning to teach others.

as the young women in kolkata become proficient in weaving, they will begin
to produce the handwoven linen bands that help make the coasters and koozies so special. and later, with the growth of our mug's best friend™ community, we will partner with these young women in opening a weaving studio in kolkata where they can create more products in our potential pipeline, including super cool bracelets and ukulele's best friend™ ukulele straps.
won't that be wonderful?!!

uke it forward®.
let's do this together.
❤️