Drew Ann Long: the journey and creation of Caroline's Cart

Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide?
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Tune in, be inspired, and join us in transforming the
world one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantour.
Welcome to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
Joining us today is Drew Anne Long, the visionary founder
of Caroline's Cart. In a world where differences are too
often misunderstood, she has transformed challenges into opportunities, reshaping the
landscape of accessibility and inclusion for people worldwide. Inspired by
her daughter Caroline, who has a severe disability, she created
a revolutionary accessibility solution that transformed retail for those with
special needs. Her relentless vision proves that one person truly
can make a difference in this world. She's here to
share her journey with us, and what a journey it is.
So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back
with an uninterrupted show right after a word from our sponsors.
Thanks for joining us today.
Oh no, I'm excited. This is great and this is
going to be great.
Well, thanks, if you would give us a little background
on what it is that you do.
Okay, So I'm a mom of three. My middle daughter, Caroline,
was born with severe disabilities. Doesn't walk, doesn't talk. She's
now twenty four. But years ago, when she was about
eight years old and outgrew all the different carts at
the stores, I thought, well, I need to now put
her in a special need shopping cart. Surely there's a
special need shopping cart. There's so many different variety of carts.
But had my manager look into it at a local public's.
He agreed, He said, well, yeah, there probably is. I'll
go ahead and buy it for you, but you shop here.
So he did his homework. I did my homework, and
lo and behold, there had never ever been a special
need shopping cart. And I really could not believe that
I thought, well, that has got to change because the
special needs population is the world's largest minority group. We
are worldwide, and I knew if I needed it, that
others needed it too.
Yes, that makes total sense. Now that tell me on
how you came up with your idea of doing this.
Can you tell us how it came about that you
made it a reality?
Ah, well, I would need about two weeks to create
that story, so I'll try to give you their quick version. Okay,
if you've seen Caroline's cart, and if anybody needs a
visual of it, you know, my website is carolinescart dot com.
That's one of my websites I have several, but that
should pop up a picture. And it's a very simple design.
I literally drew that on a piece of paper. There's
no electronics, very simple, you know, just took out the
little baby seat and just put in a larger seat
for an older child all the way you know, through
adult years. So I drew that out and I took
it to four shopping cart manufacturers in the United States.
There's only four, and all four of them told me no, wow,
they did not see the need. Just shocking. They had
walked in my shoes for ten minutes. They would never
have told me. No, they did not live in my world.
It was not a priority at all. I mean, I
tried to explain to them there's a huge gap in
this retail world of shopping and this is a p
that I believe would be successful. I didn't want anything,
I didn't want money. I just wanted them to do it.
Yeah, I can understand that. So what happened next?
So when they all told me, know, I was left with, Okay,
I'm either going to let go or I'm going to
do it. I'm going to figure out how to do it.
So I have a business degree working accounting. My whole
career was now a stay at home mom of three
little kids. My husband traveled, and I had to figure
it out every step of the way. I had to
figure out the whole process.
So once you put this idea together then you were
ultimately turned down. Was that the moment that it all clicked,
the inspiration kicked in You decided then to do it
on your own?
Yes? Yes, it took me about a year to get
a prototype. And you know, people always say, you know,
it took about seven years to get Caroline's cart off
the ground and people often ask me why it took
so long. Well, I didn't have the luxury of going
to an office every day. I was a mom first.
My husband traveled for a living. I was at home
with three littles, and I had to do this when
I could. So it took me about a year to
find a prototype. It was an Indian app with Indiana.
It cost twenty eight thousand dollars and you couldn't even
sit in it, but it was an actual physical product.
Brought home to my living room, to my dining room,
took pictures and on May eleventh, I'm sorry of May
of two thousand and eleven is when I took pictures
of it and I went to social media and it exploded.
I was getting messages from people, not kidding, all over
the world, saying where can who has this? Because this
is how I'm going to grocery shop. And I didn't
even have a manufacturer. Really just started there and from
there I had to find a manufacturer, but I couldn't
find one, and it was very difficult. It cost a
ton of money and it cost many years ticked off
the ground, but I just figured it out.
You know, that's a lot of work to go through
for sure. Now, once you had the prototype, how long
did it take until you had a physical product that
you could show and use?
It was that rule. Okay. Well, after I got that
first prototype that you couldn't sit in, and I started
Facebook and Instagram and started building that demand, I thought, well,
I've got to have something that I can take a
video in, something that I can demo, something that I
can use and be out in public.
Okay, that makes sense.
So I had to have another prototype, and I went
to my local college university engineering department just to make
me a prototype that you could sit in. Cost eighty
thousand dollars.
Oh wow, yeah.
I never I never drunk. I mean, my husband and
I did not have this kind of money. We had to.
Of course, we drained our savings, We took every extra paycheck, bonus,
everything we poured in through it. We never vacationed for years,
and eventually we had to go to our retirement. My
husband's borrowin k which you know you're never supposed to touch,
but we didn't have a choice. So I actually got
one that I could sit in and took it to
a you know, none of the big stores would let
me in. They're like, you can't come in here with that,
you know, the Walmarts of the world publics. So I
found a mom and pop store, locally owned in Birmingham, Alabama.
They let me in to take videos and photos, pictures.
I promoted the heck out of that. The demand is
getting bigger all over the nation and people are wanting
to know where to get it. So I took prototype
number two back to Corporate America, back to a shopping
cart manufacturer. There's four I narrowed it down to one.
I thought, well, I don't want to get four o's again,
so let me just pick one. So I picked the largest.
They're in North Carolina. I took prototype number two, told
them that I had a lot of demand for this,
that people wanted it, and they told me no a
second time.
That's a really tough pill to swallow. So how did
you handle it? What was going through your mind?
Cried all the way home, six and a half hour drive,
and I thought, you know, I this can't succeed without
the manufacturer. Of course, so just from Internet and you know,
just doing all I could, I found a manufacturer in Georgia.
This manufacturer had never made a shopping cart. They had
made lumber carts. If you know what rolling lumber carts are, yeah,
sure do Okay, So he made me one hundred carts,
one hundred caroline carts, and it cost one hundred thousand dollars.
Wow, that's a big ticket.
So the financial strain of this was from And for
a minute, I really thought that this would cost twenty
thirty thousand. I'd be rocking and rolling. In the end,
I'll tell you it was a half a million dollars
to get it off the ground. A half a million dollars.
Well, that's a huge leap for you to do. Was
that for everything?
And that's with all the patents, you know.
So you did this, you took a leap of faith.
Once you got all the orders in, did it finally
start to sell?
Oh? Absolutely not. So once I had my one hundred carts,
actually was only eighty eight carts because there was a
fire at the manufacturer. That's another story. So no one
would buy them. Like I would go to Walmart and
all the big stores and they said, we're not going
to buy that. Number one. We only buy from one
shopping cart manufacturer, and it was the one in North Carolina.
That had pulled me, not twice, So I had to
see the market to build a demand. The only way
I thought I had a chance was the locally owned
small stores. So my first sale, I went to the
web and I got a list of nationwide on pop
stores and I would call them and I would tell
them my story. And my first sale was in Chicago, Illinois.
It's Unset Foods And that was sale number one.
So, as with anything, when you get that first sale,
that's the big one. What happened after that?
Then I strategically tried to place the cart all over
the nation to have a nation wide grassroots effort to
build the demand.
That's a great plan. Now the big question did it work?
So took about a year. Took about a year to
sell eighty eight carts, and then several months later, probably
six eight months later, my phone rings. Then it was
North Carolina. I'm like, oh, I wonder who this is.
So is the manufacturer calling me saying it's now time
for you to come back. We are interested. Now we
now have Walmart and Target and all the big stores,
all the big chains calling us wanting Caroline's cart. So
I went on my third trip back to North Carolina,
and that is when I got a manufacturing contract, and
that is how Caroline's Cart not only wentationwide, but went
international as well.
Wow, that's a great story. Now with all that money invested,
needless to say, you need to get a return on
your investment. Did this finally work out to where you
could actually start to see a return on your investment
then ultimately a profit?
Yes, it could have about seven years. It was a
one way income stream and that was income out of
my bank account for about seven years. So then it
took several years for me to make money to pay
myself back, of course, and then Caroline's Cart has been
in the market since twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, So yes,
I am. Now do you make money on it? Yes,
praise the Lord. I do.
Well, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you put
in your hard earned money to get this thing up
and going.
You know, there's still a lot of runway left. I
work on it every day. There are still corporate chains
that have said no, like Costco. SAMs has done a
nationwide rollout, Costco refuses they don't see the need. So
I still have work to do, but it has really
you know, exploded over the years. Last year, in twenty
twenty four, Walmart did a nationwide rollout. So if anyone
is listening and hasn't seen Caroline's cart, any Walmart in
the United States has it the big supercenters as well
as the smaller grocery stores neighborhood markets, so you can
see it. We're in every single one that really did
breed new life into it, put it back on the map.
I believe it's starting to put pressure on these stores
that have said no for so long.
Number one, I think it's great that it's finally doing
well for you. With that said, it really amazes me
all the attention that autism, mental illness, and those with
special needs are getting. That these corporations would have a
deaf ear and a blind eye to what's going on
out there. Right, So, what's happening now? I mean, you
finally got it out there, it's doing well. What's the
next step. What are you doing to expand it to
make it better and get it out to even more people.
Well, Okay, so Walmart Mexico, Walmart Canada. Yes, but they're different.
They have a different board of directors, different leadership team.
They have said no to Caroline's Cart.
Wow, that's totally baffling.
Oh yes, and you know it just people like you
and me and probably all of your listeners are like,
that doesn't make sense. Who would say no to a
shopping cart that not only helps the disabled community. You know,
we track users. The second largest user of Caroline's Cart
are the senior adults that can't drive the scooters. It
is maddening to me, and I have been doing this
for so long now. Why would Walmart Canada say no?
Why would Walmart Mexico say no? So I'm still out
there fighting every day and doing all I can and
to change the minds. I always see the people that
are the decision makers. They don't live in our world.
Clearly they don't, otherwise it wouldn't be so hard.
It is totally amazing. I think you're right there. Now,
let's change gears just slightly. You've got Caroline's Carts doing
really well. Now. I believe this gave you the opportunity
to start up a foundation to help people with scholarships.
When my daughter in twenty sixteen went to college, we
were looking for scholarships. One thing I thought was, you know,
because there's so many scholarships out there. I really thought, well,
is there a scholarship for the special needs family, maybe
for if you have a special needs sibling. There wasn't,
and we searched and searched. So my husband and I thought, Wow,
what a great thing if we could start a nonprofit
to give back to the community of people that helped
get Caroline's Cart off the ground. And what community is that?
That's the special needs community without social media getting my
word out, but without the backing, and the special needs
families all over you know, the United States and beyond
that were going to their store and saying, hey, you
need Caroline's card. We need it for our family. I
need Caroline's card here, I need Caroline's card here. So
we decided to start a nonprofit called Caroline's Cause. What
it does is if you have a family dynamic like mine,
where you have typical kids and a specially needed timeil,
we award a one time, five thousand dollars scholarship to
a entering freshman of college.
Wow, that's a wonderful way to support families. Providing that
extra financial boost can make a huge difference in helping
kids pursue their college dreams. That's just great.
We say it's a win win win. It's a win
for the mom and dad because it gives them some
financial help. It is a win for the student because
it helps get their education off the ground. And it's
a win for this special need child because they are
the star of the show. You can't even apply for
our scholarship if you don't have a specialty sibling, so
we're getting that off the ground. I had over seventy
two unfunded scholarships this past year, so I'm really really
working hard trying to promote and get national sponsors for
Caroline's cause. One corporate sponsorship one only costs five thousand
dollars for a corporation. That is nothing. I don't think salary.
I have zero overhead. This is just something. This was
my give back project to the discussion needs community.
That is just so awesome. I mean, I'm sure you
realize it, but it has to be said. You're changing lives,
You're helping lives. That's a truly great thing to do. Now,
with any business, you have a business plan, You've got
Carolines parts up and going, what's next? What do you
see for the next three to five years for everything?
You're involved in.
Sure, well, for Caroline's Cart, it is absolutely continued growth.
I always say that I won't be done until we
are standard store equipment. What that means is anytime a
store opens, they order about two hundred and fifty regular carts,
they order about four to six fun carts, and they
order four to six electric scooters. I want Carolyn's Cart
to be that same standard store equipment. And we're not
there yet. That is my goal. And again international, I
mean we're in about eight or nine countries now, but
I'm still not in Walmart Canada. I'm still not in
Walmart Mexico, and that just doesn't mean sense. So continued
growth for that and for Caroline's Cause, you know, sure again,
continued growth. My vision is to never have an unfunded scholarship,
never have an unfunded scholarship. So anyone listening that wants
to make a donation to Caroline's Cause, that's my website,
Carolines Cause. We take Venmo, PayPal all the things, and
we are looking for corporate sponsors that we can also
promote on all our channels and put on our websites
as well.
Yeah, that's great, great plans. Now, if I Google carolins Cart.
I see this website that's got all these different things
on it, and it makes me wonder, do you get
people that contact you and want to buy them as well?
We cannot sell to individuals now, we can only sell
it to retailers.
Okay, that makes sense. So this is basically a retail
focused business.
Right. I'm glad you said that, because you know so
many people go on shark Tank and so many people
bring products to market. That's great. I'm different. I'm the unicorn.
And here's why. I developed a product that the consumer wanted,
but the consumer could never buy it. I had to
go to the retailer. So that made it infinitely harder
because Carolyn's Cart comes off their bottom line. Walmart doesn't
buy Carolyn's cart, market up, instell.
It right, that makes sense, So.
It made it infinitely harder. So imagine that you create
something that you get thousands and thousands of emails that
people want and would buy it in a second. Got
to say, oh, well, you can only use this great
thing that you want if you go to your store
and use it. So I'm glad you brought that up.
That did make me the unicorn. I think of entrepreneurs
bringing your product to market, because most products are sold
directly to the consumer and I didn't have that option.
Yes, that makes total sense. With all the trials and
the tribulations that you went through getting this to the stores,
what's the one thing that was the most frustrating, and
then what's the one thing that was probably the most satisfying.
I think the most frustrating thing from day one is
the lack of empathy and experience that decision makers have
in the special needs world. You know, you may not
have a Caroline in your life, a severely disabled child,
but there is not one person that cannot identify with
Caroline's card. We all will be caregivers, we all might
be the one who needs the caregiver. Anybody can identify
with Caroline's card, and very very maddening and frustrating when
a buyer looks at me like Costco and says, we
don't see the need. That doesn't make sense. I'm calling
them out because I maybe I haven't got to the
right person. But to me, there's no excuse. Anybody can
point out a problem. The problem was there was not
a special needs shopping cart. Now there is a solution
to that this is for the autistic community, This is
for the disabled community, This is for the senior adults.
I could go on and on. This is for your
neighbor who's child's ten and broke their leg and just
needs to ride in the car because the car's too
hot and they can't sit in the car. Not one
customer has ever bought Caroline and not been happy with it,
or returned it or said, you know, it never got used.
It's been the exact opposite. They start off with one, Oh,
we need three or four more. So the frustrating part
is getting to the right person and trying to make
them just have a glipse into what my family and
millions of families deal with every day.
Sure I get that, now that was the frustrating part.
Now let's turn this around and make it about satisfaction,
about pride. It doesn't have to be your first sale.
That's always a great memory. What is something else that
you just remember that you say when you think of it,
this was all worth it?
Well, of course, anytime I get photos and emails and letters,
it never gets old. Because I'm one of these families.
You know, I speak their language. I know how hard
it is to raise a child with a disability. So
I love getting all of those. I think one of
the most exciting times was a couple summers ago, I
believe it was two summers ago, we sent a the
container of Carolyn's cart to Dubai. So when I sit
and I think, gosh, I'm just a small town Alabama
girl with an idea, and now my idea is in
grocery stores in Dubai, I mean, that's just hard for
me to wrap my head around.
Sure, sure, that makes sense. I think I'd be the
same way myself. Now, don't take this wrong, but with
everything that's going on with autism, special needs disabilities, mental illness,
the elderly that needs all kinds of help, short term illness,
the list goes on and on. I'm really shocked this
has not been thought of before this.
Oh, absolutely no offense taken. That says the aha moment
before Carolyn's cart hit the market, and just in my
small circle of friends and family, I would just take
my drawing. Everybody was like, well, guh, well, why doesn't
that exist. I mean, that's just the simplest thing that
just got overlooked. You're exactly right, Why why has this
never been out there.
Yeah, it just doesn't make sense.
Doesn't make sense at all.
Now, when you first designed this, how long did it
actually take you to get the design in your mind?
Honestly it was you see it, it's so simple, you know,
getting it from my head to a piece of paper
took ten seconds. I'm like, okay, stick figure here, big
c but I'm done. That took ten seconds. Now, you know,
it's a lot harder to get it come to life,
you know for sure. But the design is just so simple.
My husband and I say all the time, how did
this get Overlook? And you know what is so maddening
is I took my stick figure drawing to four shopping
cart manufacturers didn't want to dine, didn't own the patents.
I was literally just saying, hey, you need to do this,
we all need it out there here, you get None
of them will listen to me. They wouldn't listen to me.
Yeah, that's just so crazy. Now you do have the
patent now, and you own all the rights to the
name and likeness and all that stuff, right.
Yes, I did, right, I own a trademark, patents US
and international.
Yes, that's great. The main thing is that you've covered
yourself for everything that you need to. In closing, what
do you think is very important that our listeners hear
about what you've done, what you're doing, what you continue
to do, and of course what you're doing with the foundation.
The first thing that just came to my head is
take the risk, whether that is in developing a product
like I did, whatever you're doing in your life. So
many things that we are faced with are risky. Do
we want to put the time, the money, the effort.
Let's just say it costs no money. If you believe
in it enough, like I believe in Caroline's card enough,
the risk will be ultimately worth it. So I didn't
say it would be easy. I look back and I
see that I became the ultimate risk taker. That's a
scary thing. And you know, I'm sure we've all taken
risk it didn't work out. I was at a stage
in my life with care and I believe in this product,
and I thought, you know, if it fails, it fails,
but I have to do I have to know. I've
got to give this a shot. So take the risk.
Yeah, absolutely, I completely agree. I did the same thing myself. Now,
how do people find you if they want to look
and see what you're doing or reach out to you.
What's the best ways.
The way to contact me is my website, my personal website,
and it's my names I'll say it's Drew and speaks
dot com, d R E W A N N speaks
s P e a k S Drew and speaks dot com.
That's great, great information. So you mentioned earlier that people
would send you emails and correspond with you on Instagram
and all that. What are some of the better ones
that you've gotten.
Oh, I'm all tremendous. I mean absolutely all tremendous. I
want to share something I got last month. I'm on
LinkedIn and I got a private message and someone asking
me for my address. Well, you know you have to
be careful who you give your address too, So I said,
you know, I need more information. And it was a
man who said, I want to send you a gift.
My wife used Caroline's Cart, That's all he said. So
I gave him my address. I go to the mail
several weeks later and this man had made me a
Caroline's Cart necklace with a handwritten note that said my
wife developed cancer later in life. She was always so
weak and frail. She loved to be out in the community,
and of course, being a woman, she loved to shop.
Thank you for creating Caroline's cart so my wife, in
her last months of dying with cancer could still be
a part of everyday things that she loved to do.
Thank you for making beauty from ashes.
I mean, wow, yeah, not only wow, but that's pretty powerful.
That's pretty powerful. And that is so let's think about that.
That is someone who never was touched with disability in
any way, shape or form. It was cancer, his wife
dying from cancer, and he had me a necklace made
because they appreciated what I did so much.
That is exactly what these CEOs and board members of
these big corporations not only need to hear, but need
to understand from that.
You better believe it. I posted, I gribbled his name
off of it, and with his permission, I posted the
necklace and the handwritten card on my LinkedIn, hoping just
for that like, hey, this right here. You don't think
Caroline's card is needed, please read.
Yeah, I mean that is a huge impact for that
type of scenario. The interesting part is when you see
the card, you think of the special needs you think
of all the people that it could help, But that
particular situation, that would not be the first thing that
you would think of.
Oh never, never. That is someone again, like I said,
who's never been touched with disability yet his dying wife
required to shop.
Yeah. Absolutely, Well, this has been a tremendous story. It's
been great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking
the time to join us today.
Oh I look, I this is what I do. This
is how I get the word out. This is how
I reach corporate America and I reach these retailers because
I know, I've learned a network and everybody knows something.
So if any of your listeners please reach out to me,
if there's any opportunities where I can come speak, raise
money for my nonprofit, or sell cards. That's what I do.
Yeah, that's just so great. Well, thanks again, thanks for
taking time out of your busy schedule to listen to
our show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much
as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know
someone who has a story to share, tell them to
contact us at Whyomee dot world. One last, spread the
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