These days, Wendy (Wehmeyer) Martineau (M.S.O.T., '03), still does some work in the occupational therapy field, but her real passion is all-natural personal care products.
Concerned about all the chemicals and preservatives in products that we put on our bodies, Martineau decided she could do better.
"I started realizing that a lot of the stuff that you buy at the store you can make for yourself," she said.
That was the start of her own small business Beedandy, run out of her home in Sanford. She started out by making lip balm and expanded the operation to include soap, lotion bars, body butters, sugar scrubs, foaming hand wash, and deodorant.
"Everything is all-natural, made with five ingredients or less," Martineau explained.
Her favorite product is the lotion bar.
"You can pop it out to your hand and rub it in," she stated. "I feel it is best specifically for chapped hands."
Martineau started to think about ways she could help health care workers who are working long hours and risking their own safety during this pandemic. She devised a plan to get her lotion bars to health care workers.
"I thought it would be a nice treat for these people who are just constantly washing their hands and to show them that people care about them and are appreciative of what they're doing," Martineau commented.
Martineau asked her customers if they would be interested in purchasing the bars at half price, just enough to cover her costs to make and ship them, and donate them to the health care workers. The response was overwhelming.
"I sold about 90 of them in 17 hours," she exclaimed. "I actually had to stop because I ran out. I was not expecting that."
As an added bonus, Martineau asked customer to include a small note of appreciation for the workers if they would like.
"So, the whole package includes those and hopefully they'll feel the appreciation they deserve," she said. "The notes include who it is from, where they live, describes what we're doing, and that these were donated by customers."
Martineau sent the first batch of lotion bars to Portsmouth Regional Hospital and Southern Maine Health Care.
Martineau has had to temporarily stop production of the bars because she ran out of containers.
"The containers have been on back order for about two weeks now," she said. "Once I know that they are on the way, I'm going to start up again."
Martineau says this is her small way to say thank you and to let those on the front line of the pandemic know that people are thinking of them.
