Ginnie Highsmith, Campus Carrier Staff Reporter
Senior Sydney Hulebak has her own business that serves people locally, nationally and worldwide. She is the co-founder of Lion’s Thread, a company that strives to empower and support the people of Uganda by selling bow ties handcrafted by Ugandan women.
Hulebak founded Lion’s Thread with alumna Brin Enterkin (12), who also has a company of her own. Enterkin founded the Sponsorship of Orphans in Uganda Project (the S.O.U.P.) in 2009. According to its website, the S.O.U.P. is a nonprofit organization that provides food, shelter, clothing and medical care as well as “high quality education and opportunities for leadership development and entrepreneurial training” for orphans in Uganda.
Hulebak and Enterkin started Lion’s Thread in hopes of generating more funds for the S.O.U.P. rather than relying only on money received from fundraising and donations.
“We just kept thinking that there had to be a better way to generate income for [The S.O.U.P.], which is something we are both passionate about,” Hulebak said. “I started to think about what else I was passionate about, and that is fashion and doing good.”
Hulebak said she has always had an interest in fashion and how it can help organizations, like nonprofits, grow. It was this passion for both fashion and social enterprise that gave Hulebak and Enterkin the idea for Lion’s Thread.
The goal of selling bow ties is not to create a piece of fashion that makes people look good, but rather a piece of fashion that does good.
Lion’s Thread currently employs five Ugandan women who handcraft the bow ties out of African fabrics. These women, who receive profits from every bow tie, are also part of an entrepreneurship program with Lion’s Thread, where they learn the skills needed to be successful with their own businesses. On top of the profits from the bow ties, the women have money placed into a savings account for their future business, or for education, schooling, food, clothing or their children.
The remaining money made from sales of the bow ties goes both to the S.O.U.P., to help provide for the children the program serves, and to reinvesting in Lion’s Thread. The only people who profit from Lion’s Thread are women who make the bow ties, and Hulebak said she would like to keep it that way.
“We don’t want to grow so fast where we overstep our mission of doing good, but we want to make sure that we are doing as much as possible so we will continue to do good,” Hulebak said.
The success of the company has been the result of hard work, fundraising, donations, investments, and most recently, a grant. In March, Lion’s Thread received a grant of $4,000 from the Resolution Project when Hulebak attended the Clinton Global Initiative University seminar and conference. Out of the thousands of college students who attended the event, 30 students received grants for their companies, and Lion’s Thread received one of the highest grants offered.
While Lion’s Thread currently has pages on social media sites, it is also in the process of setting up a website and online store that will be up and running later this month. Besides the launching of the store, there are plans to eventually partner with other online marketing sites that focus on fashion and positive social change. The bow ties may also possibly appear in retail shops in the future.
“It is exciting to see how this idea that started in the fall of 2012 has turned into an actual business and is growing rapidly just a year later,” Hulebak said.
Hulebak is also the director of Berry College Volunteer Services and said this experience has fueled her passion for helping others.
“Having these experiences of service at Berry is unique and has helped me realize how easy it is to do good in the world as long as you have a passion to do it,” Hulebak said. “My focus with fashion has shifted from one of self-promotion to wanting to do fashion but making it fashion with a heartbeat. And that’s what Lion’s Thread is really all about, empowering people to do great things.”
For more information about Lion’s Thread and the S.O.U.P., check out their Facebook pages as well as theafricansoup.org and lionsthread.com. Bow ties are $45.