Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation with a good friend and thought that you were so lucky to know that person? That's how I feel about Rachael Classi, founder of Tiny Earth Toys, the nation's first toy rental platform for finding and renting used toys. For nearly five years, Rachael and her team changed the way thousands of families procured toys, helping to reduce plastic waste and rethink our relationship with all the stuff around us.

In 2024, Rachael made the tough decision to close her business, but her commitment to environmental impact still has her contemplating where the idea can go from here. Join us as we discuss our paths to entrepreneurship (was business school worth it?), the big problems that keep us up at night (over-consumption of goods, the loneliness epidemic, and the loss of empathy, to name a few), and our hopes for the change we are working to achieve. She even shares a story about one of the most special moments in her life that involved, of course, a letter.

To find out what Rachael does next, follow her @TinyEarthToys. For more information on how you can declutter and keep toys out of the landfill, check out the Tiny Earth Toys guide to hosting a Toy Swap.

BONUS: How did Tiny Earth Toys reach the tipping point of going from hundreds to thousands of customers? Hear from founder Rachael Classi on adjusting their company messaging to find a better product-market fit.

For more insights on Rachael's entrepreneurship path and the impact she is working toward, listen to the full episode, "Problems Worth Solving with Rachael Classi" on The Dearist Companion podcast.

When it comes to navigating the demands of work and our personal lives, an abundance of wisdom lies in saying no. Give yourself permission to say no; have the courage to say no; no is a complete sentence. The adages go on, but what happens when we open ourselves to new things (when appropriate) by saying yes? In this episode, I read aloud a blog post from 2023 in which I reflect on the wandering path that led me to creating Dearist. You'll hear about a time circa 2015-2017 when I said yes to a series of opportunities, sometimes silly, that took me out from behind my desk and into the streets of New York City.

Did you learn cursive in elementary school? What grade were you in when you began to type? Chances are, you'd be surprised by the expectations for lesson plans these days.

In our first episode, we’re taking a pulse on the state of writing in elementary classrooms today. We’ll speak with a group of 2nd and 3rd grade teachers, based in Southern California, to learn about the shifts they've seen in how school work is done and hear why they jumped on an opportunity to start a pen pal letter writing program.

We’ll also hear from a pair of students who became pen pals to get their take on this “new” way of communicating. They’ll even let us in on the letters they wrote to each other.

To learn more about how you can support letter writing in classrooms, please visit hellodearist.com.

Have you ever found something from your past that instantly transported you to another time and place? Letters have a way of doing that. Join me, Jennifer Yang, as I speak with folks who are helping young people discover the magic of letter writing using Dearist, a book series that teaches kids how to write and send letters in the mail.

Inspire a budding writer with our letter writing kits, which include our 3-part guidebook series, stationery, and postage stamps. Classroom Packs available for educators too! For more information, visit hellodearist.com