The Story Behind The Dumpling

I built The Dumpling in the hardest year of my life.

I came back to Victoria in December 2024 as a single mom. My son was two years old. I had left a job I loved in Calgary, in a school I genuinely cared about. But I wanted my son to know the ocean. I wanted him to know his grandparents and his auntie. I wanted to come home.

The months that followed were hopeful. I got hired as a teacher and walked into September 2025 ready for a fresh beginning. Within two weeks, everything fell apart. There was an HR discrepancy. Through circumstances outside my control, I lost the position and with it, my twelve thousand days of teaching seniority from another province didn't transfer. Overnight I went from an experienced teacher with a career to starting from zero.

Two days later, my son's daycare called. He was in agony. I called the ambulance. At the hospital, the X-rays showed his femur was broken. He was put into a Spica cast — a full body cast from his chest to his ankles — for two months. He couldn't walk. He couldn't move on his own. Every day I carried him from room to room. He was so brave. When I was frustrated and heartbroken for him, he would be the one to make me laugh.

I had no income. I applied for every support I could find. I was denied. And then my body gave out too. The stress triggered a colitis flare. I developed haemorrhoids, painful, humiliating, and impossible to ignore. I was reaching into the freezer for a Ziploc bag of ice in the bathroom while my son needed me in the next room. There was no dignity in it. There was nothing designed for this.

That was the moment.

Why does nothing exist for this? Why is there no product that actually fits the human body in these private, painful moments?

When my son finally came out of his cast, he had to relearn how to walk — crawling first, then pulling himself up, then falling, over and over. I'd spent my whole career teaching bodies how to move — dance, phys ed, yoga — and now I was watching my own son learn it all again from scratch, one bruise and scraped knee at a time. Every fall came with the same small voice: "Mommy, my owies hurt." And every time, he refused the ice. He wouldn't use it. And I understood why. Nothing about it was made for him either.

That was when The Dumpling became six editions, not one.

Platinum-cured silicone that stays soft and conforming even at freezer temperature — designed for the exact anatomy of each condition. Designed in Victoria, BC. One dollar from every sale to charity. One edition for the new mom in the bathroom at 3am. One for the person who has never told anyone about their pain. One for the child who is brave enough to heal.

Every edition is priced the same — because no condition is worth more than another.

— Mallory Paul · Founder & CEO · The Dumpling Co.