Sixteen years ago, Jenny McGee and a group of friends had an idea for a social enterprise that uses jewelry as a way to help women escape human trafficking, and the resulting Starfish Project and its success has been the best kind of surprise for its founder.
That’s because the Starfish Project has grown not only in terms of its size but also in complexity. To date, the Starfish Project has rescued more than 160 women from human trafficking, giving them a safe space to live and to learn a trade.
Now, the very women who joined the Starfish Project from brothels and became independent of that life are now graduating to major leadership roles in the nonprofit business in areas such as wholesale, design, accounting, and more, McGee says.
The Starfish Project is a year into a three-year initiative to train its survivor staff to lead their own departments, McGee says. It’s an incredible outcome for a project that started with the simple hope of helping even one woman escape an overwhelming and often abusive situation.
“The survivor leaders here at Starfish Project just get it since they have experienced everything themselves,” McGee says. “For women in our program who become leaders, they live and breathe the organizational mission and are, therefore, natural catalysts of growth and development. I am very excited to see the current survivor leaders train even more women.”
At its essence, the Starfish Project is what McGee describes as a “freedom business,” developed out of a desperate need to give the women who are victims of human trafficking in her Asian city a chance at another life. (To protect the women it serves, McGee does not say which city the Starfish Project is based in.)
All revenue from its jewelry sales goes back into its mission: The Starfish Project is a 501(c)(3), and it uses those funds to create its holistic-care approach with housing, vocational training, and life-skills support for its survivors, McGee says. She describes every jewelry purchase as an investment into helping survivors gain access to education, health care, fair wages, safe and dignified work, and counseling to prevent intergenerational trauma.
“We began as a small group of friends who could no longer simply walk by the women and girls we observed being exploited around our city in Asia,” McGee says. “None of us had a business or jewelry design background. What we shared was a desire to restore hope and bring freedom.”
Every year, McGee says they create five new collections, and this season’s entry has one of the best names in terms of explaining exactly what this social enterprise tries to do for its jewelers: Live Your Best Summer.
“Though we started as a small group of women hoping on behalf of others who had lost all hope, Starfish Project has grown into a highly successful jewelry brand. We are featured in household-name stores and fair-trade businesses all across America,” McGee says. “We launch five new product collections a year, which allow for training in sourcing, design, photography, and so much more.”
The business had to grow and change because the world has done the same, McGee says.
“When we started 16 years ago, doing manual labor was a viable career in our city. Now higher skills are needed to make a life for yourself and your family in this city. We’ve had to up our game with the level of training we do,” McGee says.
“We have challenged the survivors of Starfish Project to a higher level of development for the changing market, and they have not only met us there but exceeded our expectations,” McGee continued. “As we grow, we get to invite them to grow just a little bit more. Many of the women are naturally pushing these boundaries as they realize their potential.”
Top: As the Starfish Project grows, it is training more of its survivors to take on leadership roles in the nonprofit business that focuses on fashion jewelry, says founder Jenny McGee (photos courtesy of the Starfish Project).
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