Featuring Holly Pettit
Founder, Africa Bags
The sky’s the limit for Holly Pettit. As a Southwest Airlines Captain, she is regularly travelling and bringing passengers to destinations across the country. But as the Founder of Africa Bags, she has taken her journey to farther reaches and to a new level of advocacy.
Just over 10 years ago, after watching a documentary about the Rwandan genocide, Holly, an airline pilot, and Todd, her husband and a roofing contractor, became aware of the devastating poverty in Africa. They desperately wanted to do something to help and began researching what others were doing to empower Africans.
After seeing various projects, Holly and Todd were inspired to start Africa Bags in January 2007. Their intent was to start a grass roots organization with the hope of making positive change in the world. It has become an empowerment project focused on fighting poverty in rural Malawi and reducing environmental waste in the United States and beyond.
In May 2007, Holly and Todd made their first trip to Malawi. They introduced their project to three villages near Mzuzu, Malawi, and then established Africa Bags within the villages of Kamweko, Viweme, and Nkhata Bay. They began training on the production of reusable cloth bags, by providing foot powered treadle sewing matches and all the materials and training needed to make the bags.
Africa Bags is conscientious of environmental concerns while pursuing economic opportunities.
By producing hand crafted bags in sewing groups and selling them around the world, they are providing a sustainable income to women at risk. Using a cloth bag from Africa also helps reduce the need for plastic shopping bags, which wastes the earth’s non-renewable resources and increases pollution.
Holly, along with Todd, and their children, have continued to grow and expand Africa Bags. They have included Africa Pads, empowering school girls by providing them with reusable, hygenic pad kits. They also have included Greening Malawi, which fights deforestation with a tree planting initiate and feeding vulnerable school children.
Holly’s tremendous efforts on behalf of Malawi and environmental concerns were recently recognized by the Colorado Women of Influence. COWOI presented Holly with the International Woman of Vision award at the Women of Vision Gala in July 2019.
Throughout her career, Holly has presented herself as just a regular person and airline professional. But indeed her skills and her heart show that her journey has been far more remarkable.