Continuing with my guest posts, I’d like to feature another friend of mine who’s doing some great things in the world. I first met Shawn – a Haas student and social entrepreneur – through my business club. Less than a year ago, he founded The Hamper, which combines fashion with raising social awareness. In his guest post, Shawn will share a little bit about his amazing story and his company.
My Journey
I got my start as an entrepreneur in high school. I was in the 10th grade when I started my own print media and marketing company called Structured Designs. We had a number of clients in the Orange County and LA area and did well for a few years.
When I graduated and got my acceptance to UC Berkeley, I decided to leave this venture behind and start fresh on something both new and bigger. My first year in college I started working on a hotel consulting firm with a colleague that later became known as HotelsNThings. This company is still around today, and we serve a number of hotels in the San Francisco area.
Growing up my mom came from a very poor background. She’s from Cambodia and lived under the communist rule of the Khmer Rouge. My family at the time was very poor, and on one night, as my mom, aunts, uncles, and grandparents were sleeping, their village was shot up and bombed by the Khmer Rouge. My family barely escaped walking days through terrible weather and mine fields until they were able to sneak out of Cambodia. From there they were able to get sponsored by an American Church to come to the US.
Ever since my mother told me her story it has been my dream to do philanthropy work to give back and help others like my mother. That’s why I started The Hamper. I had a lot of experience working in the apparel industry from high school, and I combined this with my experience in marketing to start The Hamper towards the end of my sophomore year of college. I hope to continue working on this venture to inspire the philanthropist in all of us, to bring out social good, and encourage everyone to do something small to make a huge difference
The Hamper
Every week we partner up with a different charitable organization. We feature the organization on our site and design tees and other products that reflect the special mission of that week’s organization. For every item sold we donate $8 directly to that week’s organization.
In just a couple of weeks we will begin our direct world change program, where our organization will begin to build schools in third world countries that need them most. This is something that has been a long-term goal for most if not all of our team members, including myself, and we’re able to do so with some of the partnerships that we have been able to create recently.
Our organization strives to not only help give funding to organizations but to also raise awareness for them. We hope that our clothing stands as a canvas of awareness every time someone puts on one of our shirts. We want to use social media to help show people that doing philanthropy can be as easy as clicking a share button or getting the word out there. Many believe that philanthropy is for people that have an abundance of time or money, but we want to show everyone that anyone can be a World Changer.
Check out some of The Hamper’s partners and designs in the gallery below – visit The Hamper if you’d like to pick up a shirt and support the cause!
Support The Hamper!
Website: www.thehamper.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thehamper
Twitter: www.twitter.com/the_hamper
Video about what we do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3F5vm5pJnQ
Venice Beach campaign video below:
Thanks Shawn for taking action to make a difference in the world. Best of luck with The Hamper!
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Fashion and social change at randomtidbitsofthought.wordpress.com.
