Van Nuys-based company helps turn cherished memories into scrapbooks
A company based in Van Nuys is helping people celebrate personal memorabilia by organizing the items into meaningful books.
VAN NUYS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- When Evan Wolfe's mother Phyllis died a few years ago, he was left with boxes of her personal memorabilia, unorganized, sitting in what he calls the closet from hell.
"During COVID times, we were looking for an activity and what really just got us was this amazing scrapbook that my mom kept of her activity in the '40s running around town. It was decrepit, it was a mess. It was falling apart," said Evan Wolfe, who just completed a Personal Memorabilia Project.
Quarantining at home like the rest of us, Wolfe dove into home organization projects that had been on the back-burner for years and that included coming up with an appropriate way to celebrate mom. A do-it-yourself digital photo album wasn't enough to capture his mother's life, so Wolfe partnered with the Van Nuys-based company Lifekive.
"Most people have boxes of stuff, whether that's kids art work or other memorabilia. What we do is we provide a way for people to celebrate all of that memorabilia. We've seen a huge influx in orders since March," said Jedd Gold, the CEO and co-founder of the Kive Company.
The company started off as Artkive, which organizes kids art work into a personal book and with the pandemic, moved up the launch of their second business Lifekive, making meaningful books which include ticket stubs, cards, letters, photos and playbills.
"If you had to get out of your house in two minutes, what are the five things you would grab in a fire. Lifekive books are one of those things. These books tell the story of someone's entire life," said Gold.
"Working on a memento particularly during this time has been more meaningful than I could have possibly imagined. It's definitely one of the silver linings of our family to have really honored our mom in this way," said Wolfe.
Evan Wolfe says it would have been extremely expensive and time consuming if he would have made the book completely on his own and says now his family is left with something they all have - a copy of the book to keep their mom's memory alive.
