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Even before the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns and isolation, San Ramon teen Anahita Vaidhya realized that people were in desperate need of personal connections and means of expressing their feelings to each other, beyond what the typical modern marketplace tends to offer.
It was this need for expression and connection that gave her the idea to start selling handmade greeting cards, upon realizing how much of a role thoughtful, one-of-a-kind, handmade gifts can play in helping to express a wide range of human emotions, and recognizing a wide range of expression and relationships.
Vaidhya’s business, Love + Feelings, has now evolved from a one-kid greeting card operation to an online shop offering a wide range of handmade gifts, seeking to bolster connections between people with the wares sold, as well as the profits made.
“A few years ago when COVID was just about to hit, I’d gone to India and we met with a distant relative who we didn’t even know was our relative, and it was actually someone’s funeral and he came to help us out,” Vaidhya said.
The man who helped shape Vaidhya’s mission to expand and rethink her business was Mukesh Sharma, who had lost his arm and in turn his job ahead of Vaidhya’s visit to India.
“He’d be riding a scooter with huge things and we’d be like ‘OK, hold up. Those of us with two arms can’t even do that; how are you doing that with just one?'” Vaidhya said.
Having already been struck during the visit by Sharma’s willingness and capacity to help those in need, despite his own circumstances, Vaidhya was all the more inspired by seeing this proclivity shoot into overdrive during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During COVID, when the wave hit in India he was setting up camps so people could get some food,” Vaidhya said. “He donates regularly and he has like a community where there’s amputees and he regularly helps them out.”
The visit came just ahead of the launch of Love + Feelings in its original form, selling handmade greeting cards aimed at expressing and building relationships.
“At that time I was just about to launch my business, Love + Feelings, and I was looking for a cause to donate to, and I was like where better to see first hand where we’re making an impact,” Vaidhya said. “So we started helping him out, and help him in turn help his community out.”
Vaidhya was able to use profits from her newly minted business in 2021 to help Sharma restart his printing press, with the community ultimately opening and operating a small sporting goods shop.
“That was our highlight of the year,” Vaidhya said.
This year Vaidhya, along with her team of fellow Dougherty Valley High School students, are seeking to support a cause closer to home, but also inspired by Vaidhya’s travels.
“Last year we were able to help amputees gain a steady source of income and this year we’re looking to help homelessness in the Bay Area,” Vaidhya said.
While the focus of their efforts this year is set to be local, Vaidhya has spent the summer learning more about the statewide homelessness crisis, through research and while on vacation.
“The thought process behind choosing this cause is because I went on a few road trips around California just checking things out, traveling, and maybe it was me not noticing this before but especially after the pandemic I’ve seen a lot of homeless camps, and it’s heartbreaking to say the least,” Vaidhya said.
“After the road trips I started researching causes and numbers of homeless people in California,” she continued. “We have 161,000 people in California and that’s much higher than the rest of the nation. That’s very concerning. I saw another statistic where … between 2014 (and) 2022 homelessness increased by 40%. whereas in other states it decreased by 9%, so i just brought it to my team.”
With Love + Feeling having launched in July its first year, plans for year two are still taking shape. Vaidhya and her team have had their hands full with the return of school this month, but have already begun some initial brainstorming for the current year.
“Some ideas we’ve had for the coming year are coat drives for winter, (and) we wanted to do something with shelter,” Vaidhya said.
The return of classes at Dougherty Valley, and Vaidhya’s senior year, are also seeing Love + Feelings expand to a school club for the first time ever.
“I’m thinking of keeping it very similar to the business idea, so we are going to get together as classmates and work toward a goal every year,” Vaidhya said. “Since I’m a senior, I’ll have to pass it down to someone I trust and who can commit.”
Although the business is in its second year of full-fledged operations, Vaidhya first began the endeavor in middle school, and has been working to bring it to fruition ever since.
“I initially started this in seventh grade,” Vaidhya said. “In the beginning it started off with … making really intricate greeting cards where whenever someone would read it their face would kind of light up. I got a lot of requests to make some cards for my friends, so I started thinking maybe I can make a business out of this.”
Vaidhya launched a website and sold several handmade cards in middle school, but ultimately found she needed to develop additional skills.
“So I started a website and sold some greeting cards on it, but in seventh grade I didn’t have much experience with marketing.”
Vaidhya went on to take courses in user experience and coding, and expanded Love + Feelings into its current incarnation after several years of learning relevant skills in high school.
“Essentially Love + Feelings is an online platform where we sell works of art ranging from jewelry cards, knit items,” Vaidhya said. “Part of this art is because we support local artists, so again during COVID, I had an art teacher Jackie and he was telling us it was really hard for him to sell his art, and he told me his other art friends were also having a hard time.”
Vaidhya said that one way she sought to address this with her business was to help uplift and empower local artists, and to remind them of the importance of their work.
“When you’re an artist I’ve seen that you don’t really value your art as much as other people do,” Vaidhya said. “I wanted to give local artists a platform essentially so they could get their work out there and they can have a digital presence.”
Artists who sell their wares on the site are featured in spotlights on the business’ social media accounts, as well as local in-person events, such as the San Ramon Farmers’ Market.
In addition to supporting the existing community of local artists, Vaidhya is hoping to help that community grow with the business.
“Right now I’m doing a lot of the jewelry making myself, and I want to teach people how to … give them a way to express their creativity,” Vaidhya said. “And my school is pretty stressful. Its’ known as a competitive school and I think that might help.”
In addition to being inspired by Sharma, and the success of her efforts to support him and his community last year, Vaidhya said that it was this need for a creative outlet that also drove her to bring the business back.
“I think the main goal was I also needed a creative output,” Vaidhya said. “I’ve been putting off a lot of my creativity … I’ve been doing art since I could hold a pencil. It’s always been my thing. Ever since 10th or 11th grade it was just math, physics, math physics — that’s all I would be doing.”
“I missed my creative side,” she added.
Directing the business towards philanthropy and a sense of the greater good was also necessary for spurring the return of Vaidhya’s creative efforts.
“If I was just doing this for myself, I’d be like ‘OK, I can make the bracelets later; I need to focus on physics now.’ But since it was for a larger community, more than myself, I kept going,” Vaidhya said.
More information on Love + Feelings, as well as the current selection of wares, is available at www.loveplusfeelings.com.
