Lightbulb Moment

Lightbulb Moment

I find myself addicted to my phone, just like many of you reading this article probably are. My specific vice is Instagram Reels. Thankfully I made a promise to myself that I will never download a new social media app so I won’t do TickTock. I set daily limitations for Instagram in screen time in an effort to control my usage but those don’t always work. It’s too easy to click “Extra 15 Minutes” and get sucked into the dopamine dump which so many social sites represent. The screen time limitations have helped me get my daily usage down to a reasonable 30 minutes a day on average. My goal is to get down to 15 minutes and then hopefully escape the social media matrix altogether at some point. While I was battling my addiction I thought “how could I make the most of this screen time?”. The answer for me came in being mindful about the content I consumed while on social media. I started to follow a lot of creators who were posting about philosophy, psychology & mindset training. I followed influencers who were creating positive content. One day as I was scrolling I happened upon a video of Zachery Dereniowski also known as “MDMotivator” on instagram and other social platforms. If you are unfamiliar with Zachery’s content his tagline is “Kindness is Cool '' which I happen to love and completely agree with. In his content he partners with different charities and businesses to make a positive impact in people's lives. In this video he was helping a homeless person, he gave them some money and took them shopping for some new clothes. I thought I would love to do something like that and that's when my idea started. My mother is the kindest person in the world and always emphasized the importance of giving back. My dad was a Navy man who taught me the value of self-discipline. Neither of my parents attended college. I was raised in a modest household where we always were taught to give back what we could and to appreciate what we had, as there was always someone out there who had less. I consider myself extremely fortunate that this is the perspective I was taught growing up. It helped me get through many difficult situations in life. I would tell myself “millions of people would consider themselves blessed if these were their biggest concerns”. We were actively involved in volunteering from a young age, usually through the church. These volunteering experiences were primarily as greeters for church each week. My brother & I would hold the door open for the hundreds of people that would be attending. We helped distribute food for migrant workers and numerous other volunteering activities. My first semester freshman year of college I had a little too much fun with alcohol and as a consequence I was required to volunteer for 50 hours. However this led to finding a charity that I volunteered with frequently where we made and distributed sandwiches to homeless people and families in downtown Chicago. This was my first extensive time engaging consistently with homeless people and I was always impressed by the people who were able to remain positive, despite the difficult circumstances they faced. Fast forward 14 years and as I was watching a video of Zach helping a homeless person I was inspired to create Cherry WIllow Apparel. The idea behind Cherry Willow Apparel is to provide the kind of support that creators like Zach are for the homeless but at scale. The vision for Cherry Willow Apparel is to “Change how the world sees beauty by changing how the world sees the homeless”. I’ve found that so many people in our society have had to “dehumanize” homeless people. They do this not because they are bad people but because our society forces them to in order to exist. As individuals we cannot help every homeless person we see get into a home but there are small things we can do to help. When you see a homeless person, introduce yourself and ask their name. Try to remember it and say hello each time you see them. This takes no money and very little of your time but it shows you care. Sometimes that's all that person needs and someone caring about them can help them get through the day. There is a homeless gentleman that is often at an intersection near where I live, his name is Joseph. I like to bake cookies and my kids and I saw him one day after I had whipped up a batch. As soon as we saw him we turned around, went home, packed up some cookies and brought them to him. I gave the few dollars I had, finances are tight at the moment but I give back when I can along with the cookies and wished him well. My kids and I wave and smile at Joseph any time we pass on the other side of the intersection. He always smiles and waves back and is so positive despite being on the street. The idea behind Cherry Willow Apparel is to capture the positivity that homeless people like Joseph are able to maintain. We seek to help them to share their experience with others by creating a design that tells their story or conveys a message they want to convey. The goal is to interview them, connect them with people that want to help by sharing and spreading their story. This creates a path to support the homeless person sharing their story directly while also raising awareness about the beautiful souls that are on the streets. We will also create a donation link for people who see the story and want to take action but aren’t into merchandise so they can contribute towards ending homelessness. The company is still in very early stages and currently we are looking to work with someone who has experience working in the non-profit space helping the homeless. We are also looking for designers that would be interested in collaborating with homeless people to create designs. For every design that a designer collaborates with a homeless person on they will be able to list a design of their own for sale on the site. Any purchases of the apparel designer's work will result in an apparel item being donated to a homeless shelter. The more homeless people's stories we are able to tell, the more impact we can have on how people view the homeless. We have the power to impact so much positive change in the world and it starts by helping those who need it the most. A great way to do that is instead of purchasing some whack designer brand bullshit that just makes rich people richer, purchase a cool design that supports those who need the most help. Together we can get them off the streets and show them how awesome they really are! .