Diane von Furstenberg continues to empower women with a new community partnership.
The fashion designer is collaborating with The Empowerment Plan, a Detroit-based organization, on a $50,000 matching campaign to employ two single homeless mothers.
The Empowerment Plan provides job opportunities to single mothers from local shelters. They are hired as seamstresses and manufacture the nonprofit’s innovative winter outerwear, including coats that are self-heating, durable and transform into sleeping bags. With The Empowerment Plan’s guidance, these women earn a stable income, find housing, support their loved ones and gain back their own independence.
Von Fursternberg discovered The Empowerment Plan after honoring its founder, Veronika Scott, with the 2014 DVF People’s Choice Award. Today, The Empowerment Plan has 23 employees, all of whom were previously homeless and are now able to support themselves. Programs and services are also provided to the organization’s workers, so they may reach their long-term professional and personal ambitions.
Donations to support this initiative are being collected on CrowdRise, the world’s fastest charitable fundraising online platform. For every $30 donation, DVF will enter donors to win one of her iconic wrap dresses.
“The Empowerment Plan is so important because it gives women the tools they need to help themselves,” von Furstenberg said. “When you empower a woman, you can change the world.”