Now the owner of Wise Abe handbags, Hayes and partner Jessica Chamberlain are using their business to help those who are less fortunate. A portion of every sale goes to help others.

And it’s a model that’s not new in Oklahoma City.

This past July, Hayes and fellow youth pastors traveled to Guatemala. It was a dream come true since she had been sponsoring 5-year-old Guatemalan Noe Abraham through Compassion International.

“It was the coolest thing,” Hayes says of the trip that allowed her to meet Noe.

The $38 per month she had been sending in faithfully was helping Noe and his two brothers get off the gang-ravaged streets every day after school and making sure they had something to eat.

Hayes saw firsthand how Noe’s family sold small goldfish in the market to make ends meet. She walked through the family’s one-room home, where three mattresses were laid together on the dirt floor to sleep 12 people.

“That just broke my heart that he was in this area,” Hayes says. “I have a boy who is 2. It broke my heart he was in this environment.”

According to the international Childhood Poverty and Research Centre, more than 600 million children are in the same plight as Noe Abraham. That works out to one in four children worldwide living in poverty.

Hayes wanted to do more than just send a $38 check each month.

She spotted some bags at the local market and came home with an idea.

She asked friend and designer Chamberlain if she thought making messenger bags out of recycled coffee bean bags would work. Chamberlain said it would, and Wise Abe was born.

Locally, PrimaCafe agreed to donate the burlap bags, but the company quickly had to go in search of more. They launched a website in April and went global.

Compassion International set Hayes’ company up with a Peruvian child named Ana. The goal is to fund her college tuition, which requires $300 a month for four years.

A portion of the messenger bags’ $65 price tag goes to Ana’s education.

“These kids are going to college, and they’re becoming doctors and lawyers, and then they’re going back to the slums and teaching those families how to do the things they’ve been taught,” Hayes says. “I want that for my kid, why wouldn’t I want that for these other students?” And when it came to giving back in the retail sector, Hayes knew exactly where to turn for help in launching her brand.

Justin and Audrey Falk, who own Shop Good in Oklahoma City, have partnered with local charities for years, and helped design Wise Abe’s website and branding materials.

“I’m not sure if we knew what to expect when we got into this,” Justin Falk says of his own retail venture. “We definitely feel good about what it’s doing.”

What’s not to feel good about? Falk’s Shop Good, 3 NW 9, is retail with a purpose.

Initially, the Falks sought to fill their hip retail outlet solely with products that donated an item for every item sold, like Toms Shoes. Since that list was relatively small, the pair decided to partner with other charities.

Now, the order of the day is 5% of the sales price goes to that month’s nonprofit, which has included World Neighbors and Oklahoma City’s Spero Project, which helps international refugees start new lives.

“I think we realized early on … for a small business like us (what we could give back) would be pretty small,” Falk says. “We want to be a part of putting these issues in front of people and hopefully make them think about the issue, think about what changes you can make in deciding what to buy and what to do with money.

“If we can do that, that will go further than the money we can donate.”