Ground Floor: Eastern Iowa company has philanthropic goals

The founders of Well Labs are on a mission to promote better health.

Chiropractors Hannah Anderson and Calla Kleene, along with nutritionist Alexa Schirm, launched the Eastern Iowa-based wellness company on Oct. 21 as a way to combat what they see as an American health care crisis.

'There are more unhealthy adults than ever before,” Anderson said. 'We want to fix that by making healthy kids who will turn into healthy adults.”

One fix Anderson and her partners identified was to provide greater access to preventive health care services to children in need.

'There were 15 million kids who faced food insecurity last year,” Anderson noted. 'If they're not getting food every night, they're not getting healthy food. If they don't have healthy food, they probably don't have a trusted adult teaching them about the importance of exercising, coping with stress, or all the other things that will prevent illness in the long run.”

For the last couple of years, Anderson and Kleene, who work in the same chiropractic clinic, and Schirm, who runs a health and wellness website, have been partnering to provide free public programs that promote healthy lifestyle choices, such as cooking classes and childhood wellness seminars.

'But the programs were bleeding our schedules dry, along with our financial resources,” Anderson said. 'We needed to come up with some kind of model to fund our non-profit dreams.”

The three women considered seeking sponsorships for the programs to ease their financial burden.

Ultimately, they landed on the idea of starting a for-profit business and using the proceeds to support wellness programs for underprivileged children.

A logical choice for their new business was one focused on nutrition.

'Nutrition is perhaps the single most important factor in disease prevention,” Anderson said. 'But nutrition is fairly complicated. A lot of people know they should be taking something to supplement their diets but don't want to give up their day job in order to figure out what that something is.”

Well Labs is an e-commerce business that delivers allergen-free, physician-grade nutritional supplements to its customers' doors. It also offers nutrition and wellness information via its website and blog and supplies wallet-size information cards with every purchase.

The company donates 10 percent of its sales to programs that bring preventive lifestyle medical services to children in need.

Anderson, who conducts nutrition evaluations as part of her pediatrics and prenatal chiropractic practice, serves as the company's chief product officer. She said Well Labs uses high quality supplements that are formulated at a lab in Steven's Point, Wis., to address specific wellness issues such as gut health or stress.

Kleene serves as chief executive officer, and Schirm as chief web officer.

' Know a company or manager who has been in business for less than a year that would be ideal for 'Ground Floor”? Contact Francie Williamson at francie.williamson@thegazette.com

At a Glance

Owners: Hannah Anderson, Calla Kleene, Alexa Schirm

Business: Well Labs

Email: info@mywelllabs.com

Website: www.mywelllabs.com

Facebook: facebook.com/welllabs