Designer Retailer Olivela Announces Plan to Donate $1 Million This Holiday Season
Giving back this holiday season just got a whole lot easier, thanks to Olivela!
The designer retailer, which donates 20 percent of proceeds to at-risk communities, just announced a major celebrity-driven initiative to raise up to $1 million for charity in partnership with organizations like St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE), WE Charity (formerly known as Free the Children) and Stand Up To Cancer among others.
Charity ambassadors including Jennifer Aniston, Selena Gomez, Alexandra Daddario and Sarah Hyland, will spearhead the movement, in which Olivela will donate $5 to its coalition of charitable partners for everyone who joins the effort now at Olivela.com through Dec. 31.
Gomez, 27, tells PEOPLE in a statement exclusively: “I believe that together we can actually make a difference in the world. Through my involvement with WE Charity, I continue to be inspired by young people who are breaking down barriers and creating real change around the world.”
“They’ve proven that youth have an incredible positive and passionate attitude for making real change in the world,” the philanthropic star says. “And I believe that through supporting girls’ education in countries like Kenya, together we can make sure that they have opportunities that many of us take for granted.”
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Founded in 2017 after CEO and founder Stacey Boyd took an eye-opening trip to refugee camps in Kenya and Rwanda, the company has stayed true to its core mission of luxury shopping with a purpose, donating 179,104 days of school to children in need in just two years.
Here’s how it works: choose from an array of apparel, accessories, jewelry and beauty products (or shop by designer), then check out as you normally would. At no additional cost to you, a percentage of your purchase will automatically go to one of Olivela’s partner charities.
The newly-launched $1 million initiative is an expansion of the company’s humanitarian partnerships to celebrate the season of giving.
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“Shoppers will do a whole lot of good and bring about powerful change simply by shopping Olivela,” Boyd tells PEOPLE of the project. “Olivela is about empowering those that shop with us to bring about the change they want to see in the world.”
From designers, to charity partners, to consumers to children on the receiving end of donations, Boyd says “everyone who engages with Olivela to help change the world and to write their own story.”
In her first two years of business, the entrepreneur says she’s received nothing but positive feedback and repeat from customers.
“Who wouldn’t love buying a bag you love and know that you have, perhaps forever, altered the course of a girl’s life for good by sending her to school for a year?” Boyd explains. “It’s a powerful thing to wear a pair of shoes or a dress or carry a bag and know that it has done real good in the world.”
