By Hadley Catalano

Malena Taylor and Annette Marion are living in the now. The NOW Family that is. Based out of Kona, the recent online start-up features the best options for raising a sustainable, conscious and eco-friendly family by weaving new and old wisdom harmoniously.

“This island didn’t have an outlet for families to buy/sell/trade baby products,” explained Taylor with regard to why the two young mothers formed their company less than a year ago. “We both always wanted to start our own business and our partnership worked very well together.”

Having met at the park over their respective three-year-old sons’ friendship, Taylor and Marion soon formulated the idea to establish an educational forum by following the trend of moving away from big box stores and back to local quality, sustainable products. “We first started out doing “Mama Parties,” Marion, a mother of two boys, said. “We would go to people’s homes and speak about everything from cast iron to cloth diapers and how families could save money, time and be environmentally friendly.”

Finding that Hawai`i was a natural fit to cater a business toward the health of not only children but the environment, the women soon realized that in order to provide wholesale priced products, such as cloth diapers at a reasonable cost, to remote Big Islanders, they needed a website.

“It was like a light bulb clicked. We had been contacted by Dolphin Diapers on O`ahu (a connection Taylor had already established) saying that people on the Big Island wanted cloth diapers,” said Taylor, also a mother of two young boys. ” We decided to start an online cloth diaper service and help people save money on other products such as our natural body care line, organic baby clothes and swimsuits, through our online retail store.”

The NOW business is more than just quality sustainable goods, the main focus is about supporting locally made products, Marion explained. The duo have established a retail operation utilizing four different “Ma and Pa” made products from Big Island businesses to support both mothers and fathers, their babies and families.

The website has launched into the premiere focus of the companies motto, to empower others to become NOW families and the women have taken their well-researched information to the public through informative lectures, support workshops and free in-house consultations, helping families find the products and services that are the best fit for their lifestyle. Weekly Saturday workshops at Aloha Kona Kids store in Kailua-Kona and Kaya’s coffee shop in Kainaliu help parents in a Cloth Diaper 101 class, as well as introduce them to area midwives and create a support group.

“It’s helpful to learn hands on,” said Taylor, whose husband Dominic has an established line of soap, skin cream and all natural disinfectant spray called Taylor’s Soap and “The Balm.” “We are hoping to expand our classes to cover other topics such as nutrition and lactation.” For now, the cloth diaper craze is taking hold. The affordable, environmentally friendly alternative to plastic disposables has become the preferred choice of many mothers.

The service that NOW Family provides is geared toward the ease and convenience of the parent and works directly to not only save money, but our island’s landfills from plastic waste and fecal contamination.

“On average, the use of cloth diapers save families $800 to $2,000 on diapers from birth to potty training age, per child,” explained Taylor, who noted that it is not healthy to leave children in diapers for more than two hours – as some “ultra absorbent” brand disposable companies claim. “Also, diapers are the third consumer good in landfills in the U.S.”

Marion then went on to explain that the World Health Organization (WHO) cites dirty diapers are a major health hazard as waste can run off into water systems, since rarely do parents flush contents down the toilet before disposing of the diaper.

These reasons combined have help the NOW Family establish a beneficial full cloth diaper service, which includes: 24-36 diaper/inserts and cloth wipes, 4-10 waterproof covers (diapers come in a variety of assortments from prefolds to hybrid to all-in-one designs, such as bum genius brand), diaper pail and two liners, doorstep pick up and drop off service, professional and natural cleaning, a buy back and layaway programs and a “gently used” option. Diapers can also be cleaned and reused again for families with more than one child, and are recyclable. Once they can no longer be used, cloth prefolds can be shredded and composted or used as a rag. As of January 1, NOW Family will also be introducing the Diaper Library. There will be a library of items that parents can rent, or rent to own.

“We are constantly adapting. Whatever people need we can make happen,” said Taylor. “That’s what makes us NOW, taking new and old wisdom with innovative programs to make babies healthier, do our ecosystem a favor, and spread the knowledge.”

There will be a free informative launch of the NOW Family’s “Birth, Babies and Beyond” at Kaya’s in the beginning of January. The Saturday date is TBD. There will be four midwives and information about the various NOW programs. Pupus will be served.

The next NOW Family class is Saturday, December 17 at Aloha Kona Kids at 12 p.m.

For more information visit www.thenowfamily.com