In the News
Forbes.com
Arbor Day Ambitions: How An Agriculture Startup Plans To Populate The World With Trees
Artificial intelligence, blockchain, and trees. What do all three of these things have in common? They are vital pieces of our future and also where innovation is happening right now.
Carrie McClain, the founder of Little Saps, proves that innovation can be found in unexpected places — in her case, the Fraser Fir trees populating the lush, rolling hills of Appalachia….
Watauga Democrat
Local author pens children’s book inspired by sapling that survived Hurricane Helene
BOONE — Former educator and longtime Boone resident Anna Welsh has released a new children’s book inspired by a local family’s experience during Hurricane Helene.
Welsh, who previously taught at Hardin Park School, gifted a young tree sapling to Erin and Will Selle before the storm. When the hurricane swept through the High Country, the Selles temporarily relocated closer to town. Upon returning home, they found their garden destroyed and their belongings swept away. The four-foot sapling was almost completely submerged, but as the water receded, the family realized the four-foot sapling had survived.
Watauga Democrat
Hardin Park teacher growing a classroom full of entrepreneurs
BOONE — On the morning of Friday, Jan. 26, Carrie McClain, owner of Little Saps, met with her “board of advisers” — Caitlin Ellis’ sixth-grade math class at Hardin Park School.
The students arrived to class dressed to impress, with some opting to don ties and button-up shirts. They greeted McClain with hearty smiles and a firm handshake, as is customary in the business world.
The students, immersed in the sixth-grade math curriculum, presented to McClain to help her create pricing for a new line of products she plans to launch on her online store, which sells gift trees or “little saps.”
Go Solo/Subkit
Grow Lasting Memories - Little Saps
Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Carrie McClain, Founder of Little Saps, located in Grassy Creek, NC, USA.
What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?
Finding the tools and partnerships, you need to be successful in determining when and where to allocate resources pricing your product competitively but realistically, and deciding how and when to scale.
High Country Wedding Guide
Sap-pily Ever After: Go Green and Gift Guests a Wedding Favor that Grows on Them
Leave it to Carrie McClain, the daughter of Michigan turned North Carolina Christmas tree farmers, to see a surplus of evergreen saplings as a harbinger of dreams come true. When Carrie’s father began raising Fraser fir saplings, she found herself surrounded by “baby trees,” as she calls them, and was awestruck by their potential.
“I couldn’t believe something so tiny had the potential to grow so big,” Carrie says. “For a brief moment, I could hold something so gigantic in the palm of my hand.”