ONESIES FOR A CAUSE SIMPLY GREEN HOME IMPROVEMENT

954
AROUND
AROUND TOWN
TOWN
NOVEMBER
BY ALEXANDRA ROLAND
SIMPLY GREEN HOME IMPROVEMENT
When his parents needed to renovate
their home, Derek Shambora was
charged with selecting safe, natural
items for his chemically sensitive father.
Two weeks later he opened a paint
store in Oakland Park – EcoSimplista
– selling the very same materials he had
scoped out for the remodel. His sister,
Dana, joined him soon after.
“We really just listened to what our
customers asked for,” Derek says. From
paints they expanded to floor coatings,
wood flooring and wood stains – most
of them safe and eco-friendly.
Earlier this year, EcoSimplista moved
to East Sunrise Boulevard and Federal
Highway for better visibility. In addition
Derek Shambora at
to selling home goods, like handmade
EcoSimplista. Inset:
soaps and furniture, the store is a
some of the store’s
natural products.
showroom for the EcoSimplista construction company. Everything – from
the concrete floor polishing to the barn
Concrete foundations, furniture and sinks – all made
doors that section off the conference room – was done
at the warehouse – make up about 50 percent of their
by EcoSimplista.
business.
619 E. Sunrise Blvd., 954-565-5900
A few months back, Shambora upgraded the nearby
ecosimplista.com
warehouse and today it’s a space of 15,000 square feet.
ONESIES FOR A CAUSE
Amanda Dubin and Kelly Meyer graduated
lucandlou.com
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ECOSIMPLISTA: STEPHANIE LYNN PHOTOGRAPHY
Onesies
from the University of Miami’s nursing program
in 2011, but they didn’t become friends until they
both started working in Broward General’s neonatal ICU three years ago.
Often volunteering in the hospital’s Primary
program, which allows a nurse to care for a baby
throughout the entirety of his or her NICU stay,
they found that many of their patients’ families
lacked the funds to even buy baby clothes. “We felt
rewarded but we wanted to give back on a greater
scale,” Meyer says.
Last year they founded Luc and Lou – named
after their two dogs – and launched it this summer.
Onesies decorated with the footprints of the “baby
founders” – seven special patients they cared for in
the NICU – are sold online. For every onesie purchased, Luc and Lou works with local children’s
charities to donate another to an infant in need.