How You Can Make An Impact 💯

Self made is one of the best marketing lines ever created. It sells because 1. It flatters us and 2. because it makes you lean in to find out how one person pulled off what seems to be the impossible. But it never actually tells the whole story.

🎧 Listen to my voice reading this letter on Spotify / Apple​

Someone asked me in an interview how it felt to be self made and I paused because I was conflicted. I have sat with why I couldn't fully answer the question, and what I have deduced so far is this.

Self made works up until a certain point, because none of us actually go at it alone. Even the ones who had almost no one, and I know what that feels like, because last year a lot of people fell away, and I had to figure out so much of it on my own, and it was fucking hard. But I still had people who held me with their energy and their love while I did.

I have been on every side of this. I grew up on Section 8, and some weeks the only reason I ate was the meals at school and the donations that paid for them. I remember being a kid and promising myself that I could not wait until I was the one who got to help, because I knew exactly what it felt like to be hungry.

That feeling does not leave you as you get older. It takes years to decondition the fear that there won't be enough.

And then last year I moved from Nashville to Arizona and about 80% of my wardrobe was gone, either stolen or given away by accident by the movers, I will never know which. I have lived on the remaining 20% of my wardrobe for a year and a half.

Did I miss my things? Yes, at first, very much because it felt devastating on top of everything else I was navigating. I worked in fashion, I used to have a street style blog. I collected beautiful pieces for more than twenty years. And losing almost my entire wardrobe showed me how much we hold onto that we do not need, and how often we buy to soothe something a purchase was never going to fix.

What actually soothes me now is knowing exactly how I can impact other people’s lives.

What I can tell you with pure confidence is that we do not need more stuff.

Walk into any store right now and the Christmas decor is already out. Tis the season for buying more things you don't need. And the things is consumerism is still alive and well. And on the other side of that, there are people this season trying to figure out how to feed their families and cover the basic needs.

And if you have the opportunity to do something about that, I hope you do, and I’m bringing you two ways in which you can: 👇🏽

YOUR DOLLARS CAN MAKE AN IMPACT ​
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💸 The first is the Rise and Dream Foundation in Arizona. Fifteen years of feeding families, getting kids ready for the school year, and a Holiday Giving program that puts new shoes, a coat, and real gifts into a child's hands during the season that makes being broke hurt the most. They call it charity with dignity, and I understand what they mean. I said yes as a featured speaker at their RISE Celebrity Charity Weekend, November 6 to 8 in Tempe. If you're near Arizona, come and grab a ticket or buy a table, the whole weekend funds the foundation. If you're not able to attend in person, you can give directly and put shoes on a kid this holiday season.

💸 The second is Wellness for the People, which I support as a board member. They are making well-being and mental health actually reachable for communities of color. Their biggest day of the year is the festival in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 7, and building something that good while keeping it accessible requires money. If this is work you believe in, a donation of any size can help someone access well-being resources that could change the trajectory of their life.

I know what it feels like to not have the basic things, to feel alone in it and to feel embarrassed by it. The people these organizations serve are not a cause, they are us, a few turns of luck in another direction.

So if this is a year you have more than enough, be the reason a kid eats, be the reason someone gets care they could never afford. That is the kind of full life actually worth building.

Until the next letter,

Vanessa

P.S. If you're a brand who wants to get behind work like this and use your dollars to be a force for good, let’s talk. Getting good companies to fund the right rooms and the right causes is a lot of what I do now, and I would much rather your money land here than on one more campaign nobody remembers.

​Vanessa Santos