Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Jacquemin and Julio Villarreal.
Hi Sandra and Julio, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
From serving on the frontlines to working behind-the-scenes, this couple has now put charity on the forefront of their lives. Sandra is a seasoned marketing executive with 20 years of experience working in entertainment & sports with brands including Reebok, Adidas, Mtv, HBP and Disney to name a few. Julio holds a Masters in International Business, served as a U.S. Marine for 4 years and is a successful entrepreneur. Together, they launched starsoul, the first cause-driven t-shirt subscription which donates 100% of the proceeds to charities. While Sandra continues her work in marketing consulting, they both manage to put starsoul as a priority in their life to better our world. Nothing comes before their 3-year old son Marcelo, but he is a part of balancing the scales and the driving force behind their motivation.
We launched this small business in the midst of the pandemic with a deep desire for positive change. Collectively, we have donated over $250,000 to charities and organizations but challenged ourselves to do more today together as partners.
(Sandra, co-founder) “I created an e-mail for my son before he was born in 2019. I send him notes, photos, like a virtual journal. From pregnancy to date, I’ve sent photos and notes about our days. I intend to give him his login credentials one day when he is older so he can see everything (I imagined technology would cancel out photo albums since we all live online now). I began to think about the world today as I documented it for him. What would the world look like tomorrow? How would it have changed? Did I do enough to make it better?”
With every e-mail I wrote, the reality of how volatile 2019 was began to sink in. We were facing COVID around the world, religion and race were under attack, political unrest, people were losing their lives – and I began to question what if anything had I done to change it? What would my son look back on?
We have become a society so deep-rooted in social media that we post something to show solidarity for a cause but don’t truly invoke change, we create trends. I didn’t want our son to think one day in the future, that all I did to change the world, was post something one day. That’s when an idea I had several years prior became a reality.
In October of 2021, we were granted a Shopify consult by female-led group Entreprenistas and worked with TVP in New York to build our site. Our proposed launch date was December 10th, Human Rights Day, seemingly impossible in two months. But we made it happen, there was no turning back.
A full story here: https://officialstarsoul.com/pages/about-us
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The entire project has been bootstrapped from savings with no investors. While Julio leads finances and logistics, Sandra handles all operations including marketing, branding and outreach. Balance has been key. Between Julio’s other businesses and Sandra still working in Marketing – together they make magic happen.
“It’s not seamless… being newly married, first-time parents while running a start-up presents its challenges. However, we would say that it’s been an amazing journey filled with hope.”
The pandemic presented challenges from supply issues to businesses no longer in business. Our goal was to maintain costs as low as possible in order to maximize donations. We also wanted to produce as much as we could in the U.S. Time was not on our side for our self-imposed deadline.
What remained important to us was going beyond the one-and-done concept to giving. You can write a check to a charity and write it off. But, it stops there. You can buy one – give one, but it stops there. The challenge for us was (1) how do we keep the giving going and (2) how do we create continued awareness for causes. We wanted to go beyond the scope of just donating one time for something.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Starsoul came from knowing that we cannot help everyone or fix everything, but we can support those that are on the ground making a difference. Our mission is to support those who are eradicating poverty and child hunger, saving our animals and environment, finding cures and building for others – they are the world changers and that became the inspiration for our signature world-changer tee.
The way it works is: every month is dedicated to a cause, that cause inspires a t-shirt design and finally 100% of the proceeds from the monthly subscription are donated to a charities related to that cause.
“I lost my father to a sudden heart attack, Julio is a former U.S. Marine, we have friends with autistic children, we’ve lost loved ones to cancer, I’ve adopted dogs my entire life. I am Brazilian-French-American…an international citizen. How could either of us choose solely one cause over another? Starsoul is something we created to support universal causes and our shared compassion for humanity.” – Sandra Jacquemin, co-founder
We are not charity-driven we are cause-driven, meaning – we don’t seek to work with just a single charity. What we focus on is the cause, like veterans or child hunger. The shirts carry the message, the subscriptions carry the donations.
Additionally, we always strive to go above and beyond the t-shirts every month. For example, March our Environment month, we included seed cards encouraging our subscribers to plant their own trees and make direct impact for the cause. This June, we highlight Animal Rights and thrilled to announce a very special initiative (stay tuned for that announcement on our Instagram).
T-shirts are all designed with purpose and intent. A lot of thought, time and effort went into every piece of packaging, all designed from scratch. We encourage our subscribers to re-use our mailing envelopes as a Blessing Bag. Fill it with items like a toothbrush, protein bars, socks, gift cards, etc. small necessities – and keep it in your car. When you see someone in the street, pass it to them. We try to make every single aspect of this project have a ripple effect for good in some way.
We are also thrilled to announce the launch of starsoul kids. Like the original subscription 100% of the proceeds from each t-shirt will be donated to a designated cause each month but will be entirely kid-focused. Causes will include child hunger, autism, education, pediatric cancer and much more. These collections will feature positive-centric tees ranging from newborn to Youth sizes.
Pricing:
- 32.00 monthly subscription
- 28.00 starsoul kids monthly subscription
Contact Info:
- Email: love@officialstarsoul.com
- Website: http://www.officialstarsoul.com
- Instagram: @officialstarsoul
- Facebook: facebook.com/officialstarsoul
Image Credits
Group of girls taking selfie and bearded guy holding globe are both Kelly Edwards photography (also a fellow alum, friend and working mama we employed during pandemic)
