Sustainable toys designed to inspire kindness and compassion
Fly Little Bird creates sustainable toys that inspire kindness, compassion, belief, and friendship. As a green-certified business, this brand is on a mission to reignite children’s imagination by creating toys that have meaning, hold a connection, and disrupt a market built from throwaway plastic items.
Fly Little Bird uses vintage and natural fabrics and combines fun, mismatched patterns, and colors to produce unique, handmade gifts for children.
Reimagining an industry with sustainable children’s toys
In 2021, the direct economic impact of the toy industry in the U.S. stood at ~$39.3 billion. 90% of this market is estimated to be made up of plastic toy products. These cheap playthings have a shorter life span than high-quality toys and are extremely difficult to recycle. This industry model is wasteful and relies on environmentally harmful single-use plastic.
Yet Fly Little Bird demonstrates that the toy industry doesn’t have to be this way. The business was born from a love of creating beautiful, high-quality products with meaning – ones that are designed to last a lifetime. The toys at Fly Little Bird encourage kindness and compassion and are eco-friendly. From stuffie heads made from cozy, repurposed cashmere sweaters to the all-natural cotton stuffing inside their soft, cuddly bodies, each one of Fly Little Bird’s products is manufactured with careful thought over its design and materials.
Prioritizing sustainable design with green business certification
It’s essential for the team at Fly Little Bird – and their consumers – that products are created with thought and in an environmentally friendly way. Becoming green certified by the Green Business Bureau helps the brand remain accountable and lets their customers know they’re making an effort to focus on sustainability.
A business built from compassion, Fly Little Bird’s higher purpose is recognized, as seen on NBC5’s Making a Difference and FOX32’s Goodday Chicago (plus more).
Below we’ve detailed some key initiatives the brand has introduced to foster sustainable business design.
Creating sustainable toys to meet a higher social purpose
As a mother of five, Jennifer Einerson, founder of Fly Little Bird, wanted to create beautiful, timeless gifts for children, to inspire kindness and friendship. In a world where technology is everywhere, Fly Little Bird appreciates toys that encourage children to use their imagination, and so the brand created beautiful gifts that do just that.
Einerson says children need to learn about kindness early on, hence the toys her business creates have a higher social objective beyond play. That is, her stuffies on a mission are fabricated from a powerful backstory – the bigger stuffies take care of a little bird who’s afraid to fly, and so they carry this bird around in their satchel. Hence, social responsibility is embedded into the organization’s core.
Yet this isn’t the only way Fly Little Bird gives back to the community. The business donates 10% of every purchase to Donate Life America, a charity with a mission near and dear to the team’s heart.
Sourcing sustainable materials to adopt a circular economic model
Fly Little Bird hand-makes every single stuffie from recycled materials personally sourced from Chicago, IL. The stuffies’ heads are made from cashmere sweaters and the bodies are made from 100% cotton Oxford shirts.
While many companies sell handmade children’s products, Fly Little Bird is unique in that every single material is acquired locally and is handmade in America using recycled materials.
Building a business from compassion to inspire kindness and friendship in children
“Fly little bird was created to inspire kindness, compassion, belief, and friendship in children through handmade products. Our mission is to not only encourage kindness but to place high importance on sustainability by using repurposed materials.” – Hannah Davis, Sustainability Leader at Fly Little Bird
