DUNMORE - At age 22, launching an international company that employs five seamstresses in Africa and supports young children attending school seems natural for Abby Speicher.
Starting with a trip with her dad to a small village in Ghana six years ago, the Dunmore native's experience working at an orphanage and witnessing poverty convinced her to find another way to help.
Her father, Chris Speicher, a business professor at Marywood University, took Ms. Speicher to the African country when he visited to teach nuns business and leadership skills. He encouraged his daughter to find a way to help and stick with it.
Since then, Ms. Speicher has taken her dad's advice to heart, creating a purse company that uses workers from Ghana and helps students attend school there. While the graduate of Scranton Preparatory School studies international business at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, she focuses on a lot of important business details, such as international logistics and branding.
Ms. Speicher is strong academically, but her passion belongs to Daakye, her company, which means "our future" in Akan, a language spoken in Ghana. The idea for the company came when Ms. Speicher, then a high school student, bought a colorful patchwork purse and showed it to friends. After a second trip to Ghana, she returned home with purses and sold them to friends.
Through her business plan, each purse sold by Ms. Speicher's company helps pay for school costs for 23 children in Ghana.
"I really think business is the solution to solving many of their problems," she said recently, sitting in her parents' dining room, now covered with brightly colored purses that sell for $15 to $25 each.
After selling more than 100 purses at the company's kickoff at Westminster College in November, she has sold them in New York and Pennsylvania during her holiday break from school. With a goal of selling 600 purses by the end of this year, she has even more ambitious plans for 2013, with hopes of selling 6,000 by May.
A type of business called social entrepreneurship, this kind of company was popularized by Toms Shoes, which provides a pair of shoes to a child in need for each pair sold. Ms. Speicher said she wants to use her company as a vehicle to help kids gain more opportunities.
"I can't change the educational system there," she said. "But I can promise that 23 kids will go to school."
To fund yearlong scholarships for 23 students in Ghana, Ms. Speicher said her company needs to sell 850 purses by May 1. She feels confident about meeting the goal, having sold 350 purses since the company launched a month ago. As the company sells more merchandise, it will add more students to the scholarship list.
"The students absolutely love school and take great pride in their homework and education," Ms. Speicher said. "The reason they don't go sometimes is their parents cannot afford a particular week or month and are forced to go home."
Having family who support the company and the cause helps. Her father helps ship items, while her brother has visited Ghana to look for different materials. She also has used college resources to help improve the company, creating focus groups, marketing surveys and writing a business plan.
Linda Muir, director of the center for entrepreneurship at Westminster College, has advised Ms. Speicher since her freshman year at the school and has seen key characteristics that make entrepreneurs successful.
"She learns from experience, making adjustments," Ms. Muir said. "She's steady under fire and a multitasker."
After she graduates from college in May, Ms. Speicher may attend graduate school but plans to continue growing the company.
"I can't wait to do this full time," she said.
ONLINE: http://daakye.com
Contact the writer: rward@timesshamrock.com, @rwardTT on Twitter