Sharing strength

What started as helping someone in need has turned into a life’s work for Karen Pearce.

In 2015, Pearce received a call from a woman in a transitional period of her life. She was moving out of a shelter, Pearce said, and had called because she had nothing to furnish her new home. With the woman’s permission, Pearce emailed 12 of her friends, who quickly spread the word to more than 30 people. By the end of the week, Pearce had received enough responses to fully furnish the woman’s new home. 

“She had everything,” Pearce said. “It was a crazy awesome feeling. It was me and my friends and co-workers and complete strangers, but together we helped this person start a new life.”

The best part of the journey, Pearce said, was sharing this woman’s story. Along the way, she opened up, and others decided to share their stories of trial and triumph as well. 

Also at this time, Pearce was working as a legal assistant at a law firm in downtown Birmingham, and during her daily drive from Jemison to downtown, she would use the four hours in the car to think. As she reflected back on helping change this woman’s life, Pearce said, the words “She is strong” kept coming to mind.

She had been inspired, both by the women who came together to furnish a home and by the stories of strength they shared, and she wanted to share that message of strength with others.

She had an idea to create a T-shirt that represented the strength and resilience of women, and sketched a cross and the Venus symbol that represents the female gender. After showing it to her husband, Kane, he reworked it to fit a shirt. 

The She is Strong logo features a dogwood flower in the shape of a cross, a parallel between the flower and the crucifixion of Jesus. Pearce said this represented her faith in Christ, which has always been so important to her.

“I couldn’t have made it without my faith,” she said. “As a single mom of two daughters, my verse was always Proverbs 31:25: ‘She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.’ I was working 90-hour weeks between the law firm and Lonestar [Steakhouse], so I wanted that verse on there.”

Pearce’s husband said if she sold 12 shirts a day, she could quit her job — and finally leave behind that long commute.

Once the design was finished, Pearce decided she wanted to do more than just sell shirts. She began recording weekly interviews with women, which she posts to the She is Strong Facebook page each Sunday night at 6 p.m. In addition to interviewing women in Alabama, she has driven throughout the Southeast to Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.

“There are amazing women everywhere, and we need to get their stories to the forefront and remember what’s really important,” Pearce said.

She is Strong shirts are available for purchase online and at Urban Barn in Chelsea on U.S. 280. In addition to shirts, Pearce said she hopes to expand her inventory to include other items such as coffee mugs, bracelets and hats.

“I want to go everywhere and find women and tell their story. I want to get a bus and do a tour around the U.S. and interview strong women everywhere,” she said.