What would you do if you received a large sum of money? Pay bills? Renovate your kitchen? Buy a car? For me that answer has changed over time. I rarely play the lottery but when I do, I think about what I'd do with the winnings. In my teens, I wanted to use it to pay for college and buy a car. In my 20's, I wanted to use it to take a trip around the world and pay off my student loans. In my 30's (before I started Exclusively Kristen), I wanted to use it to buy a house and take a trip around the world. I also wanted to start a rigorous English language school in Brazil for kids who grew up in the favelas (slums). I used to work as an admissions representative for a liberal arts college and I traveled to high schools in South and Central America in order to present information about the college. Almost all of the schools I visited had no low to middle income students due to high tuition and (probably) lack of scholarships. One school in Brazil allowed all employees (including janitors) to send their kids to the school for free but, according to one of the teachers, the kids from the favelas tended to drop out. I spent some time living in Latin America and it seems as if there are almost no opportunities for low income kids to obtain a quality education. At least in the USA, a lot of private schools offer scholarships, there is a range of tuition costs that make some private schools affordable, and there are many excellent public and charter schools. So I had this dream of opening up a school that would prepare poor and middle class students for universities all over the world and give them the opportunity to have a quality education, similar to Oprah's school in South Africa and Shakira's schools in Colombia.
I digress...so what would I do with a large sum of money now? I would invest it in Exclusively Kristen, specifically I would add more styles and rent showroom space. I already have a tech pack for a lovely halter top that I would love to get manufactured and I want to design some cute summer dresses. Because I am passionate about Exclusively Kristen and know that this underserved community of busty women deserve better fitting clothes, I signed up to be in the running for the Fedex Small Business Grant Contest. There will be ten winners: one grand prize winner of $25,000, one $10,000 winner and eight $5,000 winners, so if you want to see more styles in Exclusively Kristen's catalog, click on the link and vote for us! You can vote once every 24 hours, so if you want to support a fashion company for busty women by a busty woman, vote frequently and tell your friends. You won't regret it.