Photograph by John Wagner
Kids in Colored Organics clothing
Colored Organics offers clothing for infants up to kids size 12.
Plans are underway for a new orphanage to be built this year in India, a country with nearly 25 million abandoned children, according to SOS Children’s Villages, which helps children in need around the world. That’s five times the population of Minnesota—a reality that really resonated with Amanda Barthelemy, a mom and entrepreneur whose Minneapolis-based children’s clothing brand, Colored Organics, will pay for construction of this new safe haven for children half a world away.
It’s the realization of a mission bigger than Barthelemy could have imagined when she first had the idea, a decade ago, to create colorful organic cotton clothing for her daughter to wear. Back then, anything organic seemed to be oatmeal-colored basics. So Barthelemy created the brand she wanted to buy, and quickly grew a wholesale business, providing organic, sweatshop-free clothing for babies and children sold to more than 9,500 companies in 74 countries. Few would have recognized the name Colored Organics, however, until 2015, when target.com introduced it online.
“We started off with just four styles for Target and got a lot of requests based on that,” Barthelemy says. By fall 2017, Colored Organics offered its own branded collection, sold online and through retailers worldwide. Barthelemy believes customers respond to the combination of super soft, high-quality clothing and Colored Organics’ ethical practices.
“I knew that if I was going to be dressing my daughter in clothes that I created, it had to be done in a way in which I could be proud,” she says.
As Colored Organics’ profile grew, so did Barthelemy’s philanthropic goals.
While researching factories, Barthelemy discovered that most of the world’s organic cotton was being farmed in India. She decided to work exclusively with factories and farms in India that receive annual certification by Global Organic Textile Standards. But Barthelemy saw another urgent need.
“Traveling in India, I would see the children begging on the street,” she says. “Orphan children in India end up in one of three places: forced child labor, begging for food, or sex trafficking.” So, she made it her business to create a safe place for kids to live—complete with clean water, three meals a day, adequate clothing, medical care, and education.
Last May, Colored Organics introduced a giving initiative. Up to 50 percent of every item purchased at coloredorganics.com helps to fund orphanages in India. The first is anticipated to open in June in a suburb of Mumbai.
For Barthelemy, that orphanage is the true mark of success for her homegrown startup. “I believe there is hope in our ability to think beyond ourselves and take responsibility for the impact of the purchases we make.” coloredorganics.com
