Feb 26, 2009

Hartwood hits HollywoodBy Rob HedeltFredericksburg.com

Oscar ceremony celebrities from Anne Hathaway to Stephen Baldwin got the word from Hartwood Elementary School students this week that they’d better work harder to help the environment.

“I said that in many ways, they have more power than the president,” said 10-year-old Mazzen Shalaby. “People care about them and notice what they do.”

Which is why Shalaby’s fourth-grade teacher, Leslie Lausten, and several members of Lausten’s extended family were in Hollywood last weekend connecting with Oscar-going celebrities.

Lausten’s sister and brother-in-law–Ed and Kathy Lawrence–own a Richmond business called Calypso Studios.

The company has created and is selling an environmentally friendly line of designer totes they think can be an attractive, convenient and affordable alternative to the plastic and paper bags that litter the landscape.

The S.H.O.P totes (Start Helping Our Planet) are a line of reusable totes that retail for under $30 and fold into a small, easy-to-carry case.

After showing the totes at a gift-industry trade show in Los Angeles recently, the couple was asked by “Secret Room Events,” a celebrity-gifting company, to take part in the Oscar festivities.

The Lawrences said yes, and soon enough the trip became a family affair, with Lausten and the women’s parents, Deal and Jane Flowers of Richmond, taking part.

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