Our Story

Stacey & AQUA2GO™ Stacey Griffin is a resident and business owner in New Orleans, Louisiana. She graduated from Tulane School of Social Work in 1995. After several years of working in the field, she opened a psychiatric facility for low-income children and adolescents in 2000. She worked hard to build this business and then lost it all to Katrina. However, she and her family returned to New Orleans post-Katrina, where she managed to rebuild the agency. It is currently once again serving children and adolescents in the Greater New Orleans area with severe psychiatric illness (www.milestonesmha.com).

In addition to the psychiatric agency, Stacey decided to create an innovative, new water product called AQUA2GO® . It was based on an idea for a product she had to improve the health of her daughter, Sofia, who preferred juice boxes over water.

Stacey's idea was to create a "water box," and so her research began immediately. She quickly found that water boxes had been around for many years, and that this was not a new concept. However, the fact remained that she could not purchase them at her local grocery, and figured that many other people in the country could not either.

So, the goal then became to fill this market need and to do it quickly. Stacey also firmly believed that adults would love this product as much as kids, so she decided to design the box so that AQUA2GO® would be appealling to everyone. She worked diligently on this project over a four-month period doing lots of internet research. The work was done in early morning hours before her family woke up... and her day as the owner of a psychiatric facility and "mom" began.

Stacey's husband, Tal, worked not only at his own full-time job, but also before and after work each day, to assist in this venture. He, along with many of her friends and family, provided valuable design input throughout the process to accomplish this goal. Stacey says that the final product is a loving collaboration of everyone involved.

The hard work did pay off. AQUA2GO® was manufactured in late November 2006 and can already be found in thousands of groceries. This rapidly growing list of merchants can be viewed on the website (www.aqua2go.com).

Stacey has secured local and national distributors for AQUA2GO® . She plans to work hard over the next several months to make AQUA2GO® available at stores across the country.

Due to an obvious interest in the well-being of children, as well as in the rebuilding of New Orleans, Stacey decided that she wanted this new company to be active in charitable donations. She has already begun donating AQUA2GO® and/or monetary donations to local organizations working toward Post-Katrina recovery, and also local/national organizations committed to helping children in need.

Stacey says, "I am committed to making my businesses succeed here in Louisiana... both aimed at improving the lives of others, especially our children. I plan to be the best mom and wife possible at the same time. When people ask what motivates me the most, I share the following quotes that are posted on my refrigerator to see every day:"

"Its never too late to be what you could have been".

"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."

Click here for more pictures of Sofia and her friends!