Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Katrina Oprisko. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Katrina , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love for you to start by sharing your thoughts about the pros and cons of family businesses.

I’m happy that we created a family business for our children. We were able to provide our young daughter and her friends with their first jobs. For me personally, I like to walk into a business and see every generation working together. Family businesses are integral for a stronger community.

Katrina , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Katrina Oprisko, my husband Kris and I own Earthwell Refill. Earthwell Refill provides a plastic free alternative for your household and toiletry items. We encourage our customers to bring their own containers into our store and fill them with our offerings of natural and organic products. We have laundry detergent in 55 gallon containers , dish liquid in five gallon containers and shampoos and conditioners in one gallon containers. In addition, we have products made of bamboo, natural fibers, metal, and glass. We want to make plastic alternatives economically accessible for all. As a community store, we participate in many community events and engage our customers to think about how we can serve our community.

Before a product goes out on the shelf, we ask customers and neighbors to try it first and give us feedback. Our customers have introduced us to products that we share with the rest of the community. I want potential customers to know that Earthwell Refill is a place where you can meet your fellow neighbors and share environmental ideas, it’s not only a place to shop but a place to be part of the community.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

We called so many commercial realtors looking for a spot in the North Park area and no one wanted to work with us. I think it took us at least 6 months to find our realtor. It became evident that since we had a novel idea, we were seen as a risk to many commercial realtors. Finally we were able to find a spot but it wasn’t on the main road nor was it set up for a retail store. We could only have two customers in at a time, as there was a long ramp leading into the store area and a set of stairs took up 1/4 of the room. On some days we would only see 2 people and make $25. After two years of making a name for ourselves, and spreading the word via fairs and colleges we were able to relocate to Kensington on a busy street right off of the 15 Freeway. We could have easily given up but we kept at it and now we have been in business for five years!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Our social media strategy is to post something everyday. Our posts include announcing a new product, exploring a botanical used in a product, community events, customer appreciation. Our main goal is to be consistent.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.earthwellrefill.com
• Instagram: earthwellrefill
• Facebook: earthwellrefill
• Twitter: @earthwellrefill