By Kacie Leach
Pura vida, which is Spanish for “pure life,” is what Griffin Thall and Paul Goodman are all about. After Thall and Goodman graduated college, they took a five-week trip to Costa Rica that changed their lives forever. The two recent graduates met a man on the streets of a small town in Costa Rica who was making brightly colored, handmade bracelets. From that point on, the business life of Thall and Goodman boomed.
To these two guys, “pura vida” was more than just a saying, and these bracelets were about to become a movement. Thall and Goodman now work with the artisans in Costa Rica who make the bracelets, and ship them to the United States to sell them at local shops and online. What originally started out as a way to provide local artists in Costa Rica with jobs, led to so much more.
Now the company Pura Vida Bracelets sells bracelets that represent individual charities and organizations, each having their own unique colors to make each one different from the next. Some of the charity bracelets include, LGBT Pride Awareness, which consists of every color of the rainbow, a Save the Sharks bracelet, which is light blue and gray, and even a bracelet for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention, which is red and black. There are over one hundred charity bracelets to buy.
“I have an anti-child abuse awareness bracelet, and knowing that Pura Vida is selling bracelets for a good cause and giving money to charities makes me want to buy more. It feels like I’m helping out, and you can tell the company really cares about each individual charity,” Gabby Ledur, senior, said.
With each charity bracelet, which costs $5, $1 is given directly to the charity, while the other money is still being used to provide jobs in Costa Rica. They also sell regular bracelets, charm packs, anklets, and more which are not associated with other charities.
Each bracelet is handmade, and then has a wax coating over the strings to give it a longer life, making each bracelet waterproof and durable for just about anything. Attached on each bracelet is a tiny “p” charm to represent pura vida and living a full life.
“I have several Pura Vida charity bracelets: one for sea animals, natural high, depression, self-harm, and pride. I’ve been wearing them since my freshman year and still wear them as a senior. I love what the individual bracelets stand for and what the company stands for,” Reilly Scott, senior, said.
