My Social Canvas Blog A note to Tory Burch, from the Desk of our CEO, Lisa.

"This year, one of our orders with a retailer was shipped to our warehouse with incorrect barcodes. We caught the issue and decided to pull together a team overnight to fix the issue. Our team was upbeat and positive during the process. As I sat on that warehouse floor and attached tags to 2,000 bags, I was reminded that fashion icon Diane Von Furstenberg (DVF) had been in my place before." - Keep reading to hear Lisa's story and why she thinks it's never time to quit!Last weekend, and with only 48 hours until the deadline, our Founder & CEO Lisa found out about the Tory Burch Foundation Fellowship Competition for women entrepreneurs. The competition will select 10 women entrepreneurs to receive access to capital, education, mentorship and networking. The application asked for Lisa's story and a personal statement about how she overcomes challenges. She sat down at her desk and began to write. Here's what came to mind...FROM THE DESK OF OUR CEO:In 2012, I founded My Social Canvas (MSC) with the dream of combining my passions for fashion, social responsibility, and empowering women and girls. This company is my true calling. The students are the heart and soul of our brand. Our apparel is designed by students for a cause, and each product tells a unique story sharing the name, school, and inspiration of the student designer. My Social Canvas and our milestones are just as much the achievements of our students, as they are mine.Although we are a small company, My Social Canvas is by no means small. We have a campus team of inspiring students from around the country and Canada. I have recruited these students personally, and mentor them as they pursue their own dreams in fashion, business, and life. The MSC mantra is helping students design a life and career they love each and every day!My Social Canvas is at a tipping point with many recent milestones including: a trip to the White House where I had the chance to meet President Obama, a project with Whole Planet Foundation and Lionsgate Film Studio, events at Sephora and Norstrom, and our #Design4HerEducation scholarship competition with Dayle Haddon's non-profit WomenOne. This campaign invited girls to design for the future of other girls and included a panel of high profile judges including Christy Turlington Burns, Founder of Every Mother Counts, Desiree Gruber, Producer for the hit show Project Runway, Anne Fulenwider, Editor in Chief of Marie Claire Magazine, Erin Flaherty Beauty & Health Director of Marie Claire, Kelly Rutherford, women's advocate and actress from the show Gossip Girl, and fashion designer Catherine Malandrino. #Design4HerEducation was a dream come true. It united some of fashion's most influential icons in an effort to select the most creative designs by the most innovative young designers. This project has the opportunity to change the lives of the world's next up-and-coming designers, as well as the many girls around the world that will go to school by funds raised. Here's a sneak peak at the winning designs and the student designers behind this creative collection!Although any entrepreneur can tell you that founding a business is not free of challenge, I believe that the ability to get back up when hard situations arise help us overcome issues that come our way! This year, one of our orders with a retailer was shipped to our warehouse with incorrect barcodes. We caught the issue and decided to pull together a team overnight to fix the issue. Our team was upbeat and positive during the process. As I sat on that warehouse floor and attached tags to 2,000 bags, I was reminded that fashion icon Diane Von Furstenberg (DVF) had been in my place before.In DVF's memoir, The Woman I Wanted to Be, she shares her story of dresses being shipped from Italy to NYC with the labels incorrectly written in Italian. While this discouraged her a bit at first, she didn't let it get her down. Instead, she personally crossed out the prices on each tag and wrote the price in English. While tagging my products, DVF's story kept me hopeful because I knew she had been in my shoes.Perhaps someday I will add this story to my own book to give hope to another woman with a dream.Just like DVF, Tory Burch is another woman in business and fashion that I admire. She has built a company from scratch and she never gave up. Tory's brand is iconic and her story inspires me. But what's most important about Tory is not only that she's a designer and business woman, but a mother, a passionate philanthropist, and a woman that is mentoring other women as they design a life and career they love. She reminds women that their dream can be done; she reminds us that it's not time to quit.Howard Shultz, the CEO of Starbucks once said, "When we love something, emotion often drives our actions. This is the gift and the challenge entrepreneurs face every day. The companies we dream of and build from scratch are part of us and intensely personal. They are our families. Our lives." My Social Canvas is intensely personal to me. I would be honored to be selected as a Tory Burch Foundation Fellow so that My Social Canvas can pass the torch on to other young women and students in 2016 and beyond. xo,Lisa