'Can Do' spirit helps family create inspirational products
Excerpted from the Mill Valley Herald, article by Angelica Marden.
When Mill Valley residents Robert and Deborah Luster and their three kids started Can Do Kid, Inc., a company aimed at inspiring people to make a positive difference on the planet and instill a "can do" attitude in children, the possibilities of what they hoped to do seemed endless.
Now, more than a year since the company published "I Can Do Anything!" the first in a series of inspirational books for children, Can Do Kid has expanded its reach, hired some additional help and created two all-natural nutrition and energy bars that are already flying off the shelves of local markets.
The company's motto - "it's not about age, it's about attitude" - seems to speak to kids of all ages.
Deborah Luster, Can Do Kid's heart and cheerleader, is the former operational president of Annie's Homegrown, a progressive company that made all-natural pasta products. She manages the Can Do Kid operation with the3 help of her sister Christine Elders and Celinda Shannon, a former co-worker from Annie's.
Luster resigned from Annie's after going into labor with her second daughter during a phone interview with Newsweek for a piece on the company.
"I was on the phone thinking, 'I'm going into labor!' but I stayed on for the whole interview," said Luster. "Suddenly, I realized I needed to slow down and be a mom."
Luster slowed down - briefly - and settled into chaufferi8ng her kids to sporting events and music lessons, being PTA president, a Girl Scout troop leader and supporting a can-do attitude in her children.
It wasn't long after that with the support of her children and husband, Luster realized her family's unique zest for life might actually help others, and she got the Can Do Kid ball rolling.
"We wanted to be the voice of the idea," said Luster. "We wanted to make the world a better place for children, so that they are active, healthy, and know they can do whatever they want. We embrace that as a family; we to tae kwon do together, play piano together and remind each other how capable we are."
According to Luster, the can-do spirit is so alive in her family that none of their friends were surprised by the project.
"Everyone was like, 'Of course you would do that,'" said Luster. "It's kind of funny, but it just serves our goal - we're part of the positive snowball that inspires people. We have to be what we're preaching."
"I Can Do Anything," features examples of Can Do Kids, a coalition of boys and girls, ages 4-8, each with a personal "brief" - a short list of things like age, accomplishments, pets and food preferences. The kids have names like Linda gonzalez; Dominick DeLucca; Keisha Williams, who made a calendar to raise money for sick kids; Virginia Kamoto, who organized her school's Earth Day project. Curiously, Can Do siblings John, Sarah and Emily's last name is never mentioned (though on further inspection, this is because their parents seem to be Robert and Deborah Luster!)
After the success of the book, which the family published and distributed to bookstores throughout Marin and Japan - a market that went "wild" for the Can Do Kids idea - Luster sensed she could use her background in the natural-food industry for the creation of the next Can Do Kid-inspired product.
After some research she found that the energy-bar market was wide open and ever-expanding - energy bars have a growth rate of 2- percent annually.
Since Can Do Kids are always on the go, and always in need of a quick snack, a grab-and-go treat seemed like the perfect fit.
"We wanted the bars to be something families could feel good about when running around from soccer to music lessons," said Luster. "Sure, ideally kids would eat the apple parents pack in their lunch, but os often those return home in the backpack. This might seem like its' candy but it's healthy, and sometimes that's the best you can get."
And so, after seeking a manufacturer located in Deborah's native East Bay, and enlisting the help of local testers, the family shared their bars with participants in last year's Mill Valley Youth Soccer Fest and used local students as marketing guides. The Can Do Lusters created cookies-and-cream and chocolate-crunch nutrition/energy bars that are 70 percent organic.
Each package contains two 2-ounce mutibite snack bars, which Luster said was important to her because she was always breaking nutrition bars in half when she gave them to her children.
"They can never eat a whole adult nutrition bar and none of them are properly formulated for kids," said Luster.
The Luster children, Emily, Sarah and John, help create the bar's logo, a leaping cheetah.
"It's our favorite animal," said Luster. "My kids always play cheetah, and I would pet them when I was a teenager and lived in South Africa. We just love them."
Shannon, who does not have children of her own, recently joined the company after Luster convinced her to move down from Portland to help with Can Do Kid.
While she has worked in the food industry and marketing before, Shannon said the Can Do Kid venture has given her a whole new perspective on business.
"Can Do is really the essence of having a positive attitude about things," said Shannon.
"I wouldn't say I'm a negative person, but I'm certainly a bit cynical at times. It's really easy to look at life and say the glass is half-empty, but when you're working with a group of people and a company named Can Do Kid, the thought to see things from the glass-is-half-full perspective is more the norm."
Shannon said she thinks Can Do Kid's "great accomplishments and connections" come from the positive can-do energy being put into the company.
"As hokey as that may sound, having a positive attitude and going to that place first, instead of the negative, seems to have really favorably impacted the quality of my life in both work and play," said Shannon.
For Luster that constant ability to say, "Yes, I can do this" and the drive to make the world a better place, is more than enough fuel to keep Can Do Kid going, no matter how much work it takes to find distributors and a consumer market.
She encourages all three of their children to brainstorm future Can Do Kid products and said she hoped they will all start their own companies, based on their interests, in the near future.
"The best we can do," says Luster, "is taking an idea and saying we can do this - and then doing it."
The Lusters feel that families suffer when there is too much negativity and self-doubt. They have designed a logo: the word "can't" in a red circle and diagonal bisecting line - the international symbol for "no" or "not allowed."
"We want kids to have 'positive exposure,'" said Luster. "We want the first words kids read to be 'I can.' We feel affirmations like 'I Can Do Anything!' really work for kids, and help in getting them to stop saying 'I can't' all the time."
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