We are on a mission to spread sleepcare. Our soft bedding is more than a slogan, it is a solution. We announced our Help Close the Sleep Gap Initiative in July 2020 when we learned Black Americans get significantly less rest and sleep than white Americans - or what has come to be known as The Racial Sleep Gap . This rude awakening to the racial divide in rest and sleep spurred us to activate in the most meaningful way we could as a bedding company - to support leaders advocating for BIPOC rest by gifting them a set of Nollapelli sheets. It is our hope that leaders of the BIPOC rest movements will sleep better on our bedding and therefore be more restored to continue their very important human rights work. Everyone deserves a good night’s sleep. We call this initiative Help Close the Sleep Gap, and it's a start. We welcome all suggestions regarding how a bedding start-up can make real change in Helping to Close the Sleep Gap. The BIPOC rest advocates, educators, activists, and artists we have supported in our small way are listed below.
International Black Latinx artists Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa envisioned the art installation / activism exhibition of Black Power Naps beginning in 2015 (source: If You’re Black, Rest is Power, published in Paper Magazine by Michael Love Michael) addressing the racial sleep gap by creating the liberated, enhanced, intelligent, decadent, delightful, sensational and powerful Black rest experiences of the future. Historical, institutional, and systemic racism have robbed Black people of arguably the most valuable asset, time. Time to rest, time to restore, and time to dream. The Black Power Naps exhibition invites Black people to come and rest in any of their future-forward environments or, “ ‘healing stations,’ each ‘invented,’ as the artists put it, to evoke different bodily sensations through physical contact.” (Source: Reparations for Black People Should Include Rest, originally published in Black Power Naps Magazine, re-published on Vice by Janine Francois). The last sentence in the above article asks, “When was the last time you enabled Black people to rest?” This call-to-action was the catalyst for Nollapelli to reach out to Navild and Sosa to be our first sheet set recipients as part of the Help Close the Sleep Gap Initiative. Who better to support in their personal rest and restoration than the visionaries of tomorrow’s Black dreamscape? We are grateful for the opportunity to support both the artists and the art in our small way. Black Power Naps opened in New York, Miami, and Madrid and an exhibition in Berlin is currently in development. We encourage others to act as well by enabling or inspiring meaningful rest for the Black community and supporting the artists. Support options include: purchasing a copy of Black Power Naps Magazine, ordering prints of exhibition photos, or donating directly via links found on their website.
Coming soon!
412PPE’s mission is to provide a mask for every face in our hometown of Pittsburgh, PA to help stop the spread of Covid-19, and Nollapelli joined forces with 412PPE through the power of face mask purchases. This summer we donated a Nollapelli face mask to 412PPE for every face mask duo purchased. We helped 412PPE reach a goal of 1,000 face masks distributed to women, teens, children, veterans, and more across the Pittsburgh area! We are grateful our donations supported health and wellness at the Women’s Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh as well as at Sojourner House.
This spring Nollapelli participated in BRANDS x BETTER, a coalition of like-minded brands uniting in an effort to give back to those affected by COVID-19. We donated 10% of our spring 2020 proceeds to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, an organization in our hometown that has seen a 543% increase of people in need of food. With the donated proceeds, we were able to provide over 1,500 meals to those without sufficient food during this time of crisis. Nollapelli is proud to stand hand in hand with other upstanding brands dedicated to more than just the business at hand. We are better together.
Do Good
Our name is inspired by the Finnish word for love, and we want to spread love by empowering our Pittsburgh community through both quality sleep and quality job skills and training. Our donation of 300 yards of bedding fabric to East End Cooperative Ministry afforded us the opportunity to do both. EECM utilized the donated fabric in their sewing apprenticeship program where participants learned how to sew bedsheets and pillowcases that would line the pillows and mattresses for EECM's shelter residents. To both build job skills and support others through our bedding designed to restore the body is an alignment we are utterly grateful to EECM for. Visit the EECM website and see if there is an alignment opportunity to support this incredible organization.
