Creative South: Love and Moxie
This Creative South article on Love & Moxie originally appeared in Paprika Southern Winter 2019. You can order a back issue, listen to our July 2020 podcast interview with Love & Moxie, or learn more about Love & Moxie on their website.
Creative South
Love & Moxie
Written by Anthony Garzilli / Photographed by Siobhan Egan
They are living in the now, surrounded by bright colors and immersed in art classes and tote bags and trinkets and mini bags and coasters and tasseled keychains.
Renée and Danielle White, the mother-and-daughter duo of LOVE & MOXiE, are poring everything into each day because spending valuable time together is essential.
In 2013, Renée was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. When she visited her daughter in Virginia that year, Danielle sensed things weren’t right. Her mother brought the wrong medications from San Francisco and couldn’t remember why she was in Virginia.
Danielle, who worked in law enforcement, immediately took action. She decided to move her mom cross-country to live with her.
“She needed more help,” Danielle says.
After a couple of years working with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York, grinding through 70-hour work weeks, Danielle knew she needed to focus her energy on being with her mother.
She always wanted to live in the South and had visited Savannah in the past. The experience stuck with her and after Renée and Danielle took a trip to Savannah, they were struck by its charm and walkability. They decided to move south in 2016.
Danielle left her job after a more than 15-year career and devoted her life to her mother—and to launching their business.
With LOVE & MOXiE, Danielle and Renée design an assortment of items to help with organization, a quality essential to those living with Alzheimer's.
“You have a place for everything and everything is in its place,” Danielle says.
Each item, including the best-selling doggie waste bag holders, is infused with color. There’s green and orange and pink and blue and metallic gold. The mini doggie waste bag design (with room for two rolls) includes polka dots and camouflage.
The eye-catching colors complement the sentiment of the business’s name: live life with moxie.
“It’s about boldness, sass, and adventurousness,” she says. “We want the products to be useful and fun.”
LOVE & MOXiE's products range from travel and tote bags (most with vegan leather lining for easy cleaning), to glittered trays and resin coaster sets. This September [2019] they participated in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s and raised $1,000; some money was donated from the ladies at Renee’s art and yoga classes. “It made me feel good that they cared enough because they knew it was so important to me and that the art helped me,” Renée (pictured in striped shirt) says.
Renée actively helps the business, including cutting threads, sanding the resin for coasters, and proofreading for the website and blog. Raising Alzheimer’s awareness is the foundation of LOVE & MOXiE. Danielle and Renée detail their story on the business’s blog and are not shy about telling their story. A dollar from each sale is donated to an Alzheimer’s charity.
Renée takes art classes, does yoga and dancing, and exercises. She paints. She stays hydrated. She walks. She helps LOVE & MOXiE grow.
Renée is present in her daughter’s life.
“There’s a stigma with Alzheimer’s and a lot of people don’t talk about it a lot,” Danielle says. “It’s a heavy, serious diagnosis but there’s still a lot of life. How do we go forward? Let’s live in the now.”
Learn more about Love & Moxie on their website or Instagram, and don’t miss Paprika Southern’s July 2020 podcast interview with Danielle, where she goes more in-depth about transitioning from a full-time job in law enforcement to owning her own business, and how she pivoted Love & Moxie when COVID-19 hit.
