The Phoenix Kit was born out of an embarrassing admission from an Eagle Scout, “I didn’t have an emergency kit”.
On a road trip in August of 2017, Adam and I were talking about the most recent hurricane that devastated the United States, Hurricane Harvey. I didn't have any kind of emergency kit or plan in place, so I asked Adam for help since he is an Eagle Scout. This was when he said to me “I don’t have an emergency kit.”
I was surprised, but I couldn't give him much grief since I didn’t even have one of my own. So, we started talking about why we didn't have kits, and it came down to 3 main things.
First, we felt that we had enough stuff around the house to be able to piece together a kit if needed - spoiler alert, we didn't. Second, most of the kits we saw in the market were either geared toward someone that was worried that all humankind would come to a catastrophic end, or were super cheap and felt like a waste of money. Third, when we decided to look into what we should include in a kit, we were overwhelmed and quickly fell down a survival gear rabbit hole, and just put it off.
It was at this point that we realized that even though there are many survival kits, neither of us knew anyone who had one (except my Uncle who will be just fine if the world ends). When we got back from our trip, we started to research and quickly became obsessed with creating the best kit we could. A kit that would resonate with people and encourage them to get one in their home or work.
2017 was an intense year for natural disasters. We were hit by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria and the wildfires that also hit both Northern and Southern California. In 2017, Mother Nature would end up throwing 16 natural disasters at the United States, causing an estimated $306 billion in damages, killing more than 3,200 people, and displacing millions. As we kept seeing these headlines, we just kept thinking about how so many of those people were not prepared. This was what solidified the mission in our minds.
To make an emergency survival kit as commonplace as a smoke detector.
This is our passion! This is what drives us every morning to jump out of bed and work to get kits into as many homes as we can.
Thank you for joining!
