A Note from Joni Bock, Co-founder and CEO
From my experience as a nurse, pet owner and a mother, I have always recognized the importance of indoor air quality and its impact on my health. But not until recently did I come to understand just how many Americans don’t know how dirty the air inside their home can be. My years in the nursing profession trained me in caring for hospitalized patients, as well as, providing an in-depth understanding of nutrition and overall health. I realized I was mostly working with people who only thought about their health on a “reactive” basis. I always wished I had a way to show people how to be more “proactive” – to help people before they got sick or perhaps even avoid illness.

As a child I was one of the lucky children and never suffered from allergies. Throughout the years I spent time living in various locations throughout the United States due to my station in the US Military. It wasn’t until I moved to Texas in 1997 when I was hit with the worst allergy known to mankind - “Cedar Fever” (or at least that is how I felt – if you know what I mean). This highly allergic reaction to Cedar Trees hit me hard. After two years of suffering through with “over the counter” medications with little relief, I sought professional help. My reaction to Cedar was so horrible I was given a Cortisone injection. Then over the next few years I went from taking just oral allergy prescription to a compounded tri-level plan. I was prescribed eye medication and later added a prescription for a nose spray.

When my doctor prescribed the nose spray she also made a suggestion to change my air filter more often. I thought this was an odd suggestion by my doctor and decided to give it a try. When you are miserable, any suggestion is worth a try! At that time, I was changing the air filter in my home about every 90 days. I was like most people – I changed it whenever I thought of it or when I looked up and saw the dust pile up on the return vent grate. I began changing the air filters every 30 days and found within a very short time I slept better at night. Actually that is an understatement - I was actually “able” to sleep through the night without waking to coughing, sneezing and a runny nose. I shared my discovery of changing my air filters on a more frequent schedule with other allergy sufferers in my neighborhood. I couldn’t believe that it made such a huge difference to the quality of my life. Just being able to make it through the night gave me the strength to endure the daytime toll of suffering with “Cedar Fever”.

Why Isn’t Breathing Healthier Air Simpler, Easier and More Affordable?

When I read the statistic that almost 90% of people surveyed didn’t even realize that air inside their home was impacting their health, I knew in my heart there was a way to change that. More importantly, most people think you have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on special filtration units just to make the air inside their home worth breathing. In fact, it couldn’t be any simpler than changing their filters on a regular basis.

Being a long time supporter of lung health, my partners and I decided it was time to “do” something - to help educate people about poor indoor air quality, residential air filters, and what people can do to reduce their risk of breathing in those harmful dust mites, toxins, allergens, and airborne bacteria that can negatively impact your lungs. It is “high time”, as my dad would say, to help people to make the decision to be proactive in creating a healthier home. And we all need a gentle reminder sometimes to do what is best for our health.

One of the most poignant moments in my career as a nurse was tending to a patient slowly suffocating from emphysema. In his final days, he began apologizing to his family for smoking around them and for not realizing the damage he had done not only to himself, but more importantly to what he subjected his wife and children to by smoking in the home. It suddenly became apparent to him that his smoke, spilling into the air, affected the very air his family was breathing. The memory of this patient has always held a special place in my heart. I tell his story because it truly illustrates how taking simple, preventative steps could help avoid such a tragic results.

You can’t always see what you are breathing! Whether it’s smoke, pet dander, allergens, airborne viruses, chemicals from cleaners, or just your standard dust mites – changing your air filter on a regular basis is the best way to improve the quality of the air you breathe in your home!

About Ease and Improvement

People got so excited when we started talking about delivering air filters directly to their homes. Time and time again I would hear women say it is their spouse’s responsibility. Or the husband would say it’s on the “honey do list”. But replacing your air filters gets forgotten more often than not! Why? Because, while it is an easy task (once they have the filter), it is a pain “just to run out to get it”. We have all made that trip to the store, only to realize we don’t have the measurements. Or better yet, they don’t carry your size! And why spend Saturday afternoons running to different stores to find air filters, only to discover you thought you knew the right size and when you returned home it didn’t fit? If your life is anything like mine, it would be another few weeks before you actually “got around” to returning the wrong filter and picking up the right one.

So I thought – “why couldn’t someone offer a program that was simple, affordable, and saved weekends for enjoying time away form work - not creating more work?” We thought that ordering online was the way to go because it could be easy to set-up your air filter sizes, you can pick the frequency you need, and you could have the right sizes shipped directly to you every 30, 60 or 90 days. That idea became the Fresh Air Club.

We decided to bring the convenience of fresh replacement air filters to people’s homes. It is one more thing to check off of your list and allows people to spend more quality time with their families – all while feeling confident that they are breathing fresh air. For the same price you would expect to pay at the big box retailer or hardware store, you get the simplicity of having your filters delivered when you need them – without making that run to the store just to replace an air filter. Even though it is one of the easiest ways to improve your indoor air quality, changing our air filters is also the most neglected chore. But with the Fresh Air Club, you will never forget your air filters again!

Try Us, Risk Free!

I hope you will give the Fresh Air Club a try! Not only will you protect your air quality for your family and pets, you will be saving money on electricity, preventing wear and tear to your AC/Furnace System, and helping reduce our impact on the environment in which we live!

I hope to welcome you soon to a growing community of Members who sleep better at night knowing that the “un-seen” is being captured in fresh, replacement air filter - instead of their lungs. Please feel free to write to me at joni.bock@freshairclub.com if you have any questions. And thank you for your interest in the Fresh Air Club!