Jammies help sleepers, nonprofits
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The last words you see at night and the first words you see in the morning could be on your pajamas, if Peace Jammies has anything to do with it.
Polsonite Heidi Sturm thought up writing a word backwards on the front of pajamas so a mirror was needed to see what the word said — perfect for tooth brushing or face washing or a morning yawn.
She calls it reflecting positive messages.
But Peace Jammies, LLC, came to fruition when she joined a Mosaic group from Plains to travel to South Africa in October of 2011.
The Mosaic group’s goal was to build a house for an orphanage for children with HIV and infected with HIV. While pounding nails and carrying boards, Sturm shared her idea with another worker named Jacqi Peterson, who has a professional embroidery machine.
The two are now business partners and launched Peace Jammies, LLC, in March. They also have a website — www.peacejammies.com — and can market their jammies as well as link to the nonprofits with whom they work. Part of the fun is choosing a word and a font.
The business’ mission is to “build relationships with individuals and organizations around the world and in our neighborhood through income opportunities for non-profits.”
Sturm and Peterson give half their profits to each nonprofit they work with, and Mosaic was their inaugural project. For Mosaic, they created their first pair of jammies, a cheery red top and flowered flannel bottoms, with the word happy on the top. Happy is the name of a little girl at the South African orphanage where the idea grew.
The children there have great names, Sturm, said, such as Pretty, Happy and Lion.
Sturm, a nurse, has volunteered at six Camp-Mak-A-Dreams, a summer camp for kids in various stages of cancer. So she talked to them about a dream line of jammies. She also pitched the jammies idea to Mission Valley Aquatics, and MVA is in the process of picking a word for their jammies.
A nonprofit called Garden City Harvest in Missoula has a community garden and “does so many other things,” Sturm said. They chose the word "grow" for their jammies, and it’s done in a leafy font.
“(Peace Jammies) is a way we can get involved,” Sturm said.
In keeping with their theme of building relationships, Peace Jammies hires underemployed and unemployed people in Sanders and Lake County to sew the flannel bottoms. The T-shirt tops Sturm and Peterson buy wholesale and are a silk and cotton blend.
“The shorts are what I want,” Sturm said, which is lower than the natural waist.
Peterson would prefer a natural waist. Sturm also likes sleeves, but she said friends have asked for tank tops, scrub tops for nursing, capri-length bottoms and even nighties. A friend even suggested using glow-in-the-dark thread for the embroidery. So who knows what might happen.
From her business partnership to Peace Jammies employees to the people who wear the jammies to people who suggest new words and products, Sturm said, “Life is about relationships.”
