Archive for social impact

Pocket’s Get Wise – Sofia Overton

In this current age of technology and social-consciousness we see a new demand among children and adults of generation z wanting to make a positive social impact in some way with every purchase they make. Whether it is being environmentally sustainable, supporting a cause, or donating to a mission, every purchase needs to mean something. As a young person, Sofia Overton saw a vacancy in the market, along with a pain people were feeling within her own community. Sofia was only eleven years old when she started her company called Wise Pocket Products.Her goal was to make life a bit easier for active children, just like herself. One day she observed her cousin put her phone into her boot because the  leggings she was wearing were not conducive to storing cell phones. Not having a pocket to put your phone in is always a struggle so she framed this as a problem and grew determined to solve it. Gears began to turn and she soon went to work on a pocket that would be located towards the top part of the sock that was the right size and secure enough to effectively hold any cell phone comfortably. It was then that the Wise Pocket design was conceived and she went to work manufacturing and marketing her product. Though it was the cell phone that Sofia designed the pocket for, she quickly found that since her target market was primarily active kids, that both inhalers and epi-pens could also be safely and securely carried in the Wise Pocket.

She did not stop innovating at the sock-pocket technology, but has also innovated her unique Wise Pocket design into leggings to solve the original problem that her cousin faced.

Though safety, security, and style are the themes of Wise Pocket Products, Sofia has made redemption a major factor of her company. She found that in her school district alone, there are six-hundred and twenty seven homeless children. This saddened her so much that she, once again, innovated a solution to fix this deprivation in her community. For every pair of socks sold, the buyer makes a small positive impact in the life of a child in need. Sofia makes sure that with each purchase of a pair of Wise Pocket Socks that the Wise Movement is serving those suffering homelessness and need across the globe. She truly believes that warm feet equal warm hearts, and every child shall experience that. As a young entrepreneur, Sofia saw a problem, framed it out, implemented redemptive qualities, innovated a solution, marketed the solution, generated revenue, and to this day continues to bring warm feet and warm hearts to children in need. She continues to fight for those suffering homelessness while supporting herself with her own God-given entrepreneurial spirit.

Visit https://wisepocketproducts.com/ for more information!

A Buzzing Business- Mikalia Ulmer & Me and the Bees Lemonade

Bees, they’re pesky, buzzing, and can cause a pretty painful sting. Lemonade, it’s a tasty, cool, refreshing drink on a summer’s day. The two don’t have much in common but, Mikaila Ulmer decided to bring these ideas together with her business Me and the Bees Lemonade. Mikalia Ulmer was born in Austin, Texas to parents who inspired her to be innovative.

When she was four years old, they encouraged her to sign up for a children’s business competition, where she had to come up with an idea for a business and pitch it to judges. Before the competition, a big idea came to her after two surprises happened.

The first surprise came in the mail when her great grandmother sent her an old family cookbook from the 1940s. This cookbook contained a particularly delicious recipe for Flaxseed Lemonade. 

The second came from a less exciting surprise, a pretty painful one to experience as a kid playing outside in the summer, a bee sting. There were two bee stings, to be exact. Mikalia was scared at first, scared of bees and their hurtful sting. Yet, something about bees captivated her, she wanted to learn all about them. She learned how crucial bees were to our ecosystem, why even though they bring a painful sting, they also bring beautiful things, like flowers. She knew that wanted to help them. 

That’s where she brought her ideas together, bees and lemonade, and started with a lemonade stand. This lemonade stand led to her business Me and the Bees Lemonade. Here, she sells Flaxseed Lemonade sweetened with honey and donates 10% of the money that she makes to organizations that help the honeybees. She started her own non-profit, the Healthy Hive Foundation, which works to raise awareness and to create more safe environments for honeybees.

Since, then, her business has grown from a lemonade stand and a recipe in her great grandmother’s cookbook. Makaila went on Shark Tank when she was 9 and got a deal with Daymond John for $60,000. The business has grown over the years, Me & The Bees Lemonade has expanded from the website and small grocery stores to grocery chains like Whole Foods and Wegman’s. In 2017, she was named as one of TIME’s most influential teens. She’s used her experience to help out others who are interested in entrepreneurship. She travels with the Dell Women Entrepreneurship Network and helps out with their youth program, where she taught with a Finance 101 class in Cape Town, South Africa. 

She’s currently writing a book on story and how she came to be the CEO of her own company. Mikalia says to young entrepreneurs, “You’re never too young to start a business. ” She wants to inspire kids, and adults, to create something based on their passions. On her own future, she says, “I definitely have a lot of goals, but as my dad always said, it’s important to work step by step and take each little goal at a time.” Mikalia really is an example of a young entrepreneur taking steps to grow a business, one goal at a time.