A single mother of a kind-hearted five year old son has set up an online business selling unique gifts to bring a smile across yours or loved ones faces.
Becca Dean, 28, started The Little Glass Frog after she lost a close family friend to Covid-19 in 2020.
The business idea came from a feeling of wanting to "inject some happiness" after she was experiencing loneliness herself, and knew others were also going through similar things.
Becca said: “We’ve all become a bit disconnected in Covid so I wanted to change that and break the mundane and bring people a bit closer."
She decided to start up a gift shop where loved ones could send hugs in packages when the pandemic forced people to become distant from each other.
“When you hear back from customers saying, ‘oh I surprised my mum with a gift for no reason whatsoever’ it makes my day and that’s what I want to do, is bring some happiness to people’s days.”
Becca wants to grow her business by reinvesting profits into mental health support for people.
She said: “People are struggling, not just with loneliness but people are struggling to eat and get their kids to work.
“We have a chat function on the shop website already where people can chat to a person about anything they’re worried about or if they’re just looking to talk to someone.”
In the past year, Becca attempted to sign up for counselling through the NHS and was told there was an eight-month waiting list.
Because of this, the online business owner is eager to help the NHS by eventually hiring staff in her business to help with the smaller issues that affect people’s day to day lives and relieve some of the burden on the health service.
She added: “Once we’re in a position where we can start moving towards that, I’ll be looking for people who are already in jobs like therapy to see if they want to volunteer just a couple hours a week and see how it runs.
“Nobody as far as I can see does this, so I don’t know if it’s going to work but the more this business grows the more, we can push it and start this side of the business.”
“We’re not a huge company," Becca said, "but if you do just want to talk to somebody we’re always happy to listen.
"And if there’s something you want to get for somebody, email me or message us saying what you want to get your friend and I will search every supplier to get that for you.”
Becca shared that The Little Glass Frog is more than just a business, and there’s real people behind the company name that care about you. “We’re not a big conglomerate, we’re a friend.”
Generosity runs in the family as Becca’s five year old son has been her rock and is “always wanting to help people".
“He has so much patience and he’ll come on when I’m doing product searches going ‘oh I’d love that, oh the girls at school would love that.
“He’s such a sweetheart, he just wants the world to be happy.”
Becca added that she is always looking for new suppliers and would love to support local business first. “Gift makers and business owners can message us at any point and I am always happy to discuss.”
You can see Becca's products by visiting the Little Glass Frog website or the company's Facebook page.
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