MEET THE FOUNDER

How It All Started

Sarah started her entrepreneurial journey early in life. As an enterprising pre-teen, she charged her younger sisters membership dues in order to gain access to her version of The Babysitters Club. (lol)

Fast forward to Sarah's career life, as the Executive Director of a national nonprofit organization in Washington, DC, she helped protect the rights of individuals needing long-term care. When she had her first baby (Maddy) in 2011, Sarah became an exclusively pumping and supplementing mom. After Sarah had her second baby (Abby) in 2015, she became a nursing and pumping mother. Through both experiences, one thing remained the same: the non-existence of a stylish and functional breast pump bag. So what did Sarah do? She took her frustration and shifted her focus to supporting mothers with their breastfeeding journeys. She left her nonprofit career and launched Sarah Wells Bags.

Sarah has been a notable leader in the breastfeeding space since 2013. She started with the vegan leather "Maddy" pump bag snowballing into more designs like totes, backpacks, crossbody bags, cooler bags, wet/dry bags and bras. From small beginnings in her garage to an internationally distributed company, Sarah Wells Bags has grown exponentially. She not only earned a reputation for incredibly high-quality products, but as a staunch advocate for working moms, a trailblazer in collaboration among brands, and an innovator in breastfeeding products.

Breastmilk Donation & 
Mental Health Support

We are a long-time supporter of Mother's Milkbank Northeast, and sponsor other accredited milk banks around the United States during times of natural disasters, such as the Mother's Milkbank of Austin, Texas during Hurricane Harvey. We have an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant on our team who hosts weekly Q&A for the pumping community and once a month a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker joins us for a "Mental Health Monday" Q&A. We are also proud to support Postpartum Support International (PSI) where we funded a scholarship to send a representative for training to establish their first-ever Puerto Rico chapter.

Sarah & Team volunteered in-person at Mother's Milk Bank NE to help with their donor milk processing 

We cannot sit still when there is a way to help; Team member Heidi is seen here cleaning and delivering breast pumps to be repurposed as ventilators during the pandemic 

Sustainability &
Support Beyond Breastmilk

During the pandemic, we collected over 100 Spectra breast pumps from our customers around the USA, cleaned and delivered them to an engineering team in Maryland to be re-purposed as ventilators, during the crisis shortage of this equipment. We also care deeply about sustainability and are proud to work with Treet to host an authorized re-sale platform for our products which extends the lifetime of the products, giving customers the opportunity to share their bags with the next generation of pumping parents.

Supporting
Healthcare Worker Families

Sarah also setup a GoFundMe and raised money to purchase impossible-to-find face masks through her existing supply chain relationships, resulting in 10's of thousands of face masks donated to healthcare workers, including many new parents working in these essential frontline roles. Subsequently our team regularly bought dinner for ICU teams across the country as a show of appreciation and support during this crisis.

Sarah was featured by Washington, DC news outlets for her innovative "pivot" to use her supply chain expertise to help essential workers with PPE 

Supporting Moms in the Workplace

Sarah regularly speaks with organizations, chambers of commerce and corporations about improving working conditions and support for new moms. This passion for new mom support, and access to the stories of thousands of moms through this business led her to begin writing a book for managers and leaders, which we are excited to announce will be published in Fall 2024 by Matt Holt Books. 

Sarah was a featured breakout session speaker (April 30, 2021) at the recent AWE Women in Business Summit to discuss how businesses can build community into their mission.