A Nova Scotia businessperson who nurtured her on-line cloth diaper business into a full-fledged storefront on Robie Street is still eager to take on more responsibility. April MacKinnon originally began her webstore Nurtured solely to sell cloth diapers and to offer moms what she had missed out on when her first baby, Anna, was born in 2005.
"There wasn’t a lot of choice and not a lot of local resources either, and you really need to support people when they’re learning cloth diapers it takes a while to learn", she said. MacKinnon, 31, is trained as a civil environmental engineer and had a successful career with ABL Environmental Consultants in Dartmouth.

But her grad school training, and her everyday work, taught her a lot about what goes on at city landfills. "I know exactly what happens when diapers end up there", she said. That really hit home when Anna was born prematurely and had to spend an extended time in intensive care at the IWK Grace Hospital, where disposable diapers are mandatory.
"I remember thinking, 'This is really ridiculous, the amount of garbage and plastic I’m sending out of here on a daily basis, and I’m just one mother and one baby."
So she walked out of the hospital knowing she wouldn’t be part of the status quo.
News of her website, which she set up with the help of graphic designer Janet Murphy and web developer Michelle Kempton, spread quickly – ironically through an old-fashioned method.
"A website can reach everywhere, but typically word-of-mouth spreads faster in your own community", MacKinnon said.
With her captive audience, MacKinnon started adding more to the website’s shopping list – natural products like hemp blankets, organic cotton towels and wooden toys that she and husband Jeff wanted to provide for their own daughter.
"It became our family’s mission to reduce the impact we were having on our environment", she says.
Before long she found that her baby, and her business, were both growing in size.
By last year, the customer base of her on-line store made it impossible to continue operating out of her Dartmouth home.
"When you have a website that provides mail-order service and it’s located right in your town, people don’t want to pay shipping", she said.
"So I’d save up all the orders from the week and go out every Sunday afternoon and we’d drive around town. Soon, it became very difficult to separate life and work."
At that point the MacKinnons had two children (son Cameron is now two) and they also had two choices shut it all down or open a store.
"It was a really difficult process because part of my initial focus was that I wanted to be at home with my children. And it’s not a 20-hour-a-week commitment. I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked before in my entire life", she said.
One of the first hurdles was finding an available storefront that didn’t have steps to prevent stroller-pushing parents from entering. She quickly pinpointed Robie Street as the preferred locale, because most of her customers were living nearby.
"When I was making all of my deliveries, consistently it was North End addresses that were the ones coming up again and again and again. It’s a very arts-oriented, very creative community and tends to attract a little bit of the alternative thinkers. So that seems to be a very good fit for us", she said.
Securing a bank loan was the next step to complete renovations (landlord Louis Lawen also chipped in) and to buy some extra stock to augment the inventory to fill the 800 square foot space.
"Finding products is one of my least concerns, because customers suggest things and small-scale suppliers will just come out of the woodwork so opportunities just present themselves", she said.
One of those opportunities came from Anastasia Manolakos, the creator of Anointment Natural Skincare Products.
MacKinnon had been selling her products on-line and through the store, but Manolakos asked her if she wanted to take the business on herself.
The only hitch is they are all handmade products.
So now when MacKinnon isn’t juggling her two kids, her virtual store and her brand new storefront, she can be found most nights hand-cutting soaps or crafting balms with her husband.
"I like a full plate. My eyes have always been bigger than my belly, and I just have to learn to live with that I guess", she said.
"Someone told me last week that the best way to parent is to continue your own personal growth, and I think that’s very true."

Amy@allnovascotia.com