👧🏾 The big importance of a mini-me

Yelitsa Jean-Charles, founder of Healthy Roots Dolls, was 20 years old when she made the realization that she had never really seen her natural curly/wavy hair. 

Her whole life, Yelitsa had struggled to learn about her textured hair, often wearing it in braids or relaxing the curls to fit in with her peers. 

• “I didn’t see women with natural hair or braids, and I really struggled,” she shared. It wasn't until her junior year of college when she realized the issue stemmed all the way back to childhood toys. 

🤔 The Root(s') cause... Yelitsa, like many children of color, didn't have any dolls that looked like her growing up. 

• “My mother worked really hard to make me feel beautiful when she was doing my hair,” she said. “But, most of the time, I felt less like Cinderella and more like a pumpkin because I didn’t see more girls with hairstyles like mine celebrated as beautiful and valid, and that was an experience that a lot of women shared." 

Realizing she wasn't alone, Yelitsa got to work founding Healthy Roots Dolls, an organization that makes multicultural dolls in an effort to teach girls to love their natural curls.

Yelitsa received a $4,000 grant from the Brown University Social Innovation Fellowship to kickstart her organization. But the real support came from the $50,000 she raised organically from people who believed in her mission. 

Over the last four years, Healthy Roots has taken off, selling out regularly and receiving orders from around the globe. 

💬 What she's saying: “We’ve had so many moms reach out and say they’ve had such a hard time finding something like this for their daughters," shared a grateful Yelitsa. "Young girls reach out excitedly saying, ‘She looks just like me!’ And, of course, at that point, I start crying and can barely make it through the rest of the message. It’s inspiring to see the impact we’ve already had and hear people’s stories.”

+Editor's note: This story was originally published in The DONUT in August 2023. It was so sweet we had to share it again🥰.