Laurie Scheinman said the idea for her retail store came in 2012 when her father was dying of lung cancer. She decided that renovating the retail space at one of her properties was a good opportunity to spend time with her father and engage him in an activity, she said.
As a result, she built wit & whim, a philanthropic gift store in Port Washington that sells fair trade and handcrafted items and donates 11 months of its profit to different charities. The initial idea was to donate to cancer research, but the shop diversified its donations over time.
On July 14, wit & whim won the national ICON Honor Award in the Community Influence, Development and Outreach category, which recognizes small business for their dedication to their communities.
“It was just an incredible experience,” Scheinman said. “I was in total disbelief and still cannot believe it.”
During the store’s construction at 6 Carlton Ave., Scheinman, a child and family therapist who in January contemplated running for Congress in the Third District, said she wanted to focus on keeping her father’s mind “off of the scary stuff.” They worked together to develop the store. As her father grew sicker, he contributed less, but his spirit was still there, she said.
While completing the store with the help of her husband, Marty, Scheinman installed four cameras, not for security, but for her father to watch the development and grand opening from his hospital room in Houston, she said.
“We were planning and researching and working every day, and he was able to watch from his hospital bed,” Scheinman said.
Scheinman was working closely with a group of children, organizing another opportunity to give back to the community, when she said she decided it would make a good story for The New York Times. She wrote a news release and sent it to the newspaper, but it wasn’t interested, so she sent it to the ICON honors.
At the time when Scheinman sent the release to ICON, wit & whim had recently won the 1010 WINS award for Top 50 businesses in the Greater New York area, so the business was gaining local attention. Then, ICON responded by naming wit & whim one of three finalists for the award.
“At first, I just wrote it off: I thought how could a small store like this be involved in something so big,” Scheinman said. “It didn’t occur to me at first how big of a deal this was.”
ICON scheduled a time to visit the store, so Scheinman said she had to be prepared for anything. After Scheinman gave a presentation to the judges, they conducted a two-hour interview, she added, covering different topics, including the store’s origin and the store’s philanthropic mission.
“The judges were particularly interested in wit & whim’s widespread community engagement,” she said, noting that they took a particular interest in the window display, which is called “A Time to Soar,” and was created by a second-grade class.
She said she explained to the judges that the shop is a “creative culmination of inspirational, nostalgic and of course whimsical collections.”
Scheinman was flown to Atlanta for the awards at the Fox Theater, where she accepted the honor. The award and the business have taught her many things, but she said what’s most important is that “you do your own thing and follow what your heart truly says and to push the limits.”
Segal was given three months to live and Scheinman said he wasn’t expected to make it to the opening, but he did. He died on Sept. 28, 2012, but Scheinman said her father’s legacy lives on with the store.
“At first it was an opportunity to get my dad engaged,’’ she said. “Now, it keeps everyone engaged.”
This month, wit & whim is donating its profits to the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless. In the past, it has donated to charities and organizations all over Long Island, including the Manhasset-based Coalition Against Substance Abuse, the Long Island Arts Alliance and the Tilles Center for the Performing Arts at LIU Post. It also donates money to national organizations such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the American Red Cross.
