Sail Charlevoix

Diane first met her husband, Andy, in high school, but it wasn't until later in life that they reconnected, and Diane moved to Michigan to be with him. An avid sailor for over 50 years, Andy moved to the Lake Charlevoix area in the mid-seventies and has spent his time on both Walloon Lake and Lake Charlevoix. When she joined Andy in Michigan, Diane fell in love with the sailing community. She quickly found a spot for herself as the Registrar for Sail Charlevoix where she helps run fundraising, social media, and marketing for the popular community sailing program.

Serving a mix of locals and visitors from youths to adults, Sail Charlevoix is a true community fixture. The program hosts hundreds of children every year, many whom wouldn't have had the opportunity to access Lake Charlevoix without their affordable programs. To keep everything running smoothly, they rely on the generosity of community supporters, parents, and alumni to fund scholarships and maintain their equipment.

As Diane was scrolling through Instagram one day, she saw a post about the Sea Bags Sail Acquisition Program. She loved the idea of keeping old sails out of the landfill, and at Sail Charlevoix they had plenty of retired sails they weren't sure what to do with. Our program was the perfect solution. With a mission, she drove down to our Charlevoix retail store and spoke with our store manager, about how she could go about trading in the sailing school's old sails. He explained how our Sail Acquisition Program works, and that if she turned in her old sails, we would trade her merchandise in exchange that she could auction off to raise funds for Sail Charlevoix.

Diane loved this idea. She was able to collect 46 of the sailing school's old worn-out sails, keeping 150 pounds of Dacron sail cloth out of the landfill.

"The process of trading the sails in with Sea Bags was very easy," shared Diane. She called ahead to let JD know she was on her way with an SUV stuffed with sails. She was able to park directly in front of the store which made it easy to lug the sails a short distance an armful at a time. JD handled everything from there and got the trade process started.

With all of the Sea Bags products she earned in trade for the sails, she was able to run a very successful online silent auction. The auction included Beverage Buckets, Beachcomber Buckets, Tool Buckets, Medium Totes, and Large Totes. In total, they raised $2,160 for the Sail Charlevoix Youth Sailing Program, the equivalent of 21 youth sailing scholarships!

Are you interested in trading in your old sails? Learn more here.