My favorite season is fall. The scarves, snuggling by a fire, and the warmth of your coffee.
Okay, okay. I’ll admit it. In San Diego, it still feels sunny and 75…but regardless, it is a time when the earth sheds the old to make space for the new. To leave room for beauty to bloom. God has been teaching me a lot lately about how He redeems, He restores and how He makes all things new. In fall, a tree may have lost all of its leaves, but the integrity of trunk and its branches remain. It is that foundation and support that becomes crucial to give new leaves a home.
I’m reminded how YOUME Clothing emulates the life of a tree, a strong foundation with a recurring cycle of the old becoming new, rags into resources. I have not been able to attend a clothing exchange in country yet, but I hope to soon! I have been able to be a part of the process here, coming alongside the other volunteers for a “Sewing Night” held in our homes. We cut out the patches into different shapes: triangles, hearts, circles and sewed them onto apparel. And I have also had the opportunity to join the team as a volunteer intern, sell products and tell our story at local events!
At YOUME, our core values are: quality, renewal, empowerment, transparency, and love. Quality means that our priority is to make excellent products. They are ethically sourced and sold at a fair price. Renewal is at the center of what we do with our Rags to Resources model, both with the products we sell and the relationships we build with our partners. Third is the empowerment of the local communities and focus on creating a cycle of good rather than one-way charity. Next is transparency, to measure the impact we have and give our partners a chance to comment on our work and suggest improvements. Finally, we believe in love because as the founder of YOUME Lauren Wallis puts it, “Love is putting you before me.” And it’s the catalyst for all we do.
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But who am I you may ask, and why is it that I talk about YOUME 24/7?! I am a student at the University of San Diego in my fifth and FINAL (YAY) year. I am majoring in Education and minoring in Nonprofit Social Enterprise and Philanthropy, Theatre Arts and Performance Studies, and Credentialed in Nonprofit Management Professional. Yeah, that’s a lot. I am thankful for all of it though because it has led me to YOUME where I am able to take skills I have learned and a passion for social justice and apply them here.
I first started getting pumped about slow fashion, basically ethical fashion, about a year or so ago. I was attending Flood Church’s Christmas Collective for their concert. Before the concert, they were hosting a nonprofit fair with over 30 booths in attendance and YOUME was one of them. I walked up and saw Lauren working on her sewing machine, sewing patches on the shirts for sale. Then I found out that one of the volunteers was a friend I have known since high school! It just felt like family from the start. Their model and empowerment model caught me. I believe YOUME Clothing is an amazing pathway for the everyday human to pursue fashion molded toward creating good in our world. I am thankful that the YOUME team believes in me and has given me the chance to intern and launch our first ever Brand Ambassador program (coming soon). It has been an awesome way to engage my current community and empower those my age!
If anything that you read speaks to you or you’re passionate about sharing our story, please reach out to me!
Instagram: @sarahdee512
Email: sarahdifede@sandiego.edu