A Peek at Our Continuing Community Engagement
When Element Design moved to our incredible space on Northampton St in Easton, Pennsylvania, we knew that we wanted not just to move in, but to become a part of the fabric of that vibrant community. We have loved participating in the events around tow. If you’re local, perhaps you saw our hearts window display last year, in partnership with Mercantile Home (you can read more about that here!) or perhaps saw our flowery scarecrow this past fall. We love having fun with our beautiful pace, and engaging the imaginations of all who pass our shop. Not only do we love the opportunity to create fun and whimsical moments, we also love getting out into the community and truly working to be of service to this beautiful area.
We’d like to share some of our favorite community oriented outings, as well as highlight the good work being done locally by some fabulous organizations. We hope that this provides others in the area with ideas and inspiration to go out and become a helping hand. Even if you are not local to the Lehigh Valley, we encourage you to see what’s happening near you! Community engagement benefits everyone, including you!
West Ward Community Initiative
Our love for Easton bloomed from the very start of our small business journey. This town was the first place we called home, and we hope to continue on here for many, many years. You can read more about our history with Easton in this article, which tells the story of our business from Amy’s attic to our current home in the West Ward of Easton. We have so loved this town and connecting with the other small businesses and vendors who make up this community. This is a place that values the people within it, and is always striving to create a better space for all who live and work here.
This past autumn, our team was invited to assist the West Ward Community Initiative with their West Ward Clean Up Day. About half of our small team took a Saturday morning to meet and help clean the streets surrounding our studio, with many of us bringing along our spouses and partners to join in the fun. And when we say fun, we really do mean it! This event allowed us to connect with each other, spend time outside, and make this community shine just a bit brighter. We were able to greet our neighbors and chat with the folks who live nearby our studio.
We cannot say enough good things about working with WWCI. They provided supplies (and pizza!), made us feel welcome, and poured positive energy into the task at hand. All of us who participated in the clean up left feeling accomplished and satisfied. We also left feeling a greater sense of care towards the city we get to call home. All of us were more mindful about keeping our sidewalks clean and maintaining our hard work, keeping the space beautiful.
Are you an Easton local who is just wishing you’d had a chance to join us? Don’t you worry! The West Ward Community Initiative hosts these clean up days at least twice a year. This next one will be on Saturday, Apr 27, 2026, and you can read more about it by following that link. Be sure to also check them out at their website, or on their instagram, where you can see more of the good work they do and find ore ways to get involved in the local community.
Second Harvest Food Drive
One of the most important community groups in our area is Second Harvest Food Bank. This organization is the hub for almost all food donations in the greater Lehigh Valley. They take in donations and distribute them to those who need it most. Second Harvest’s facility has seen over 15 million pounds of food come in and be moved back out to serve the most vulnerable in our community. They rely on monetary and food donations to provide their service.
In the winter of 2024, our team spent two days helping Second Harvest out by loading up donation boxes at their facility. We had a blast, and it felt great to get involved in that tangible way. They are always open to volunteers, especially in the winter months following the holidays. You can find opportunities to volunteer with them by checking out their website. You’d be sorting, packing, and being a part of making sure everyone in the Lehigh Valley has a chance to enjoy a good meal.
This past holiday season, we were thrilled to help out Second Harvest by providing a drop-off location for donations, as well as matching cash donations. We were heartened to see that local folks and even some businesses within Easton were participating in the drop offs. Some of our favorite local vendors like Easton Candle Co and Jentle Land Mark built raffle baskets of their lovely wares. When a box of food or some dollars were donated, you got a ticket and a chance to win something that was also from our own community. The Marquis Apartments in downtown Easton also helped us out by providing their tenants with donation boxes and bringing the food gathered there down to our studio.
Second Harvest is an incredible organization and we were proud to be a small part of helping them to provide food to those who need it. Times are hard, and coming together in ways big and small has a huge impact on the community you are in. If you are local to us, we encourage you to look into volunteering with them, and for keeping your eye out for donation boxes. If you are from elsewhere, there are sure to be groups local to you that are doing the same in your community. If there isn’t, perhaps you’ll feel inspired to create one!
Mom Market Trees of Love Auction
Element’s studio is more than a workspace. It can be transformed into a gorgeous winter wonderland. This past December, we did just that in order to host the Winter Mom Market. We were honored to be the venue that the Moms Meet Market in collaboration with Jentle Land Mark selected for this amazing event. These two businesses whose work within the community has an integral part of their models, put together an incredible community event. The market featured crafts and vendors, and was an absolutely lovely evening. We loved being able to be host to an event that was not only fun and exciting, but also offered an opportunity to give back.
One exciting part of the event was a live tree auction. This auction’s purpose was to raise funds for a really incredible organization, Self! Women's Reentry. This auction was announced by our very own Creative Director, Jenni (owner of Jentle Land Mark). This nonprofit provides assistance to women who have faced incarceration and are reintegrating themselves into the community. The auction was a chance to shed light on this organization and its goals. We are proud that such a powerful movement was held within our studio.
A Caring Community is Great Community
Element loves our community. We are always looking for ways to make our mark in a positive way. We love our day to day work of pressing flowers and preserving the most precious of memories, but having a chance to pause and be a part of the larger community we have found ourselves in is incredibly important. We care deeply about this area and the people in it. We have loved getting involved, either with the physical work of cleaning up the streets or packing boxes, or with the collections of donations and spreading the word about some of the great services and nonprofits in our community.
If you are one of those nonprofits, let us know if there are ways we can get involved with you! We love both the West Ward Community Initiative and Second Harvest, and have had a great time working with them to be helpers in our community. We hope to find other organizations that we can assist, especially ones within Easton. This community was the first home our business had, and we want to be a part of making it even better for all who live here.