Built in public.
Built in NYC.
An 18-year-old cashier at Key Food Staten Island, building a company that turns every grocery bag into a walking billboard for local businesses and a donation to local causes.
Hi, I'm Muhannad.
I'm 18, I work as a cashier at Key Food in Staten Island, and I'm building multiple companies at the same time. Lift4Cause is one of them.
The idea hit me at the register. Every day, I watch hundreds of people buy plastic bags. They're ugly, they're wasteful, and they go straight to the trash. But what if those bags were reusable, beautiful, carried a local business ad and a QR code, and funded a neighborhood cause — all at once?
That's Lift4Cause. Local business meets local grocery store. The bag becomes a walking billboard. The QR code tracks real impressions. Part of every sale goes to a community charity voted on by the neighborhood.
I'm not a corporation. I'm not a VC-backed startup. I'm a kid from NYC who saw a problem at work and decided to solve it. Building in public. Figuring it out as I go.
How the money flows
Local businesses pay
Businesses pay $599 for 500 bags or $999 for 1,000 bags. That covers production, distribution, and the charity donation.
Stores sell the bags
Grocery stores buy bags wholesale at $0.55 and sell at $0.99–$1.49. A portion of every sale goes to the community charity.
Community votes the cause
The neighborhood votes on which charity gets funded each run. Most votes wins. The cause feels earned — not assigned.
The Vistaprint of
hyper-local advertising.
Right now, we're in Staten Island. But the vision is a self-serve platform where any local business in any city can book a bag ad slot at a grocery store near them — with AI-generated ad mockups, QR tracking, and monthly performance reports. No agency. No middleman. Just your business, your neighborhood, your impact.