Our story
Welcome to our store! We are Jean-Michel, Janinne and Mollie and we love Whidbey Island.
Jean-Michel is French and Janinne is South African and Mollie is a Labradoodle! We have been living on Whidbey since the very start of the Covid pandemic. What was supposed to be a short stay ended up becoming a complete life change for which we are incredibly thankful.
We were living in Seattle's Alki neighborhood with a family member who is a nursing assistant when Covid hit. It became clear pretty quickly that we couldn't continue to live together so we asked Jean-Michel's children's grandmother if we could stay with her for a few weeks at her home on Whidbey which we had been visiting for many years.
As the weeks turned into months, we realized that we had fallen completely in love with the island and neither of us wanted to go home to Seattle. It took a few minutes to make the decision to make our stay here permanent and the rest, is history!
Both of us are self employed. Jean-Michel is an automation consultant in the manufacturing industry and Janinne has her own marketing business, Sugarbird Marketing. She designs websites (like this one) and helps companies develop brand messaging. Mollie is the light of our lives and is an essential and necessary part of every adventure.
The idea for Whidbey Island Provisions came during those heady days of sourdough starters and sewing bread bags (for all those loaves of bread Jean-Michel was baking) during lockdown. Over the past year as we became very involved with a local business that has become very important to us, Whidbey Farm & Market, we saw an opportunity to create an online store dedicated to things we want to make as well as products sourced from our friends here on the island. This includes gorgeous bamboo bowls sourced from a local company that operates out of a vintage bowling alley in Coupeville.
So, whether you currently live on Whidbey, have lived here or have visited, we hope you will enjoy being able to keep a bit of Whidbey Island magic in your life.
Jean-Michel, Janinne & Mollie