By Jennifer Wiecek
Growing up in New Jersey, my family spent our summers at the Jersey shore. Owning a home on Long Beach Island had long been my dream. In 2020, my family and I made that dream come true when we purchased a house in Beach Haven West. Since then, my family and I have spent our days on the beach soaking up everything LBI has to offer. One of our favorite things to do is to walk the beaches collecting seashells and sea glass. On rainy days and over the winter months we spend time painting the many seashells we find.
In 2024, my boyfriend and I decided to get healthy and quit smoking. To quit smoking, I needed something to fill my free time other than television. Luckily, inspiration came one afternoon when my daughter asked for permission to sell some of our painted LBI seashells at the lemonade stand she had set up with her cousins. Maybe selling our painted seashells could be a small family business. And just like that, LBI Sea Shells was born.
In the following weeks I set up a website and social media pages for our new business venture. Next, I reached out to Cheryl at Things a Drift in Ship Bottom as an outlet for selling our LBI Sea Shells.
It has been a year, and I could never have imagined that starting a business would come out of me quitting smoking. Having a family business has been a great positive life lesson for my children. We hope to eventually turn our family seashell business into an LBI bed and breakfast.
As for me, this experience has affirmed that the most beautiful thing about LIB is not the beaches. It is the people.
