Exploring Life & Business with Camryn Ross of Genuine Me

Today we’d like to introduce you to Camryn Ross.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Genuine Me started as a result of seeing my siblings go through the foster system before they could join our family for good. Through many months of thought and planning my Mom was able to come up with a rough outline of how she wanted to make a difference. Benji’s story inspired her and me to help others who may be going through the same situation.

Many kids and teenagers have gone through so much trauma in their life due to their parents or the situation they grew up in. Most of them have no way of sorting it out in their head. In schools, they are seen as the problem kids and at home, they may be seen as trouble-makers. A lot of ways to deal with these actions is to punish and give consequences, yet we don’t know what actually caused it. We decided to start selling shirts that have a story that goes along with them.

For example, the person willing to share their story will be able to do that and design their own shirt to be sold with some of the profits going to organizations that help kids. Our hope is that eventually, we will be able to teach and train people to address trauma and help others learn how to deal with it in healthy ways.

But for now, we are doing what we can as a small business. Trying to collect stories and help people along the way.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We have had many struggles in starting a new business. There is a huge learning curve in order to be able to make and sell t-shirts and run a website. In the beginning days, we had our shirts made by a 3rd party company.

Our decision to make our shirts from home may take longer but we are able to make sure they are high quality and genuine. Another huge struggle is finding people who are ready and willing to share their stories. One big thing we have seen in trying to find stories are people who feel inadequate and feel like their story is not enough to inspire others.

We want to show people that others can relate and learn from every trial that they have overcome. We are still working out many rough edges in our business but if we can even inspire one person, we feel like we are doing alright.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
At Genuine Me, we design shirts and highlight stories about trials and trauma that people have overcome in their lives. As we grow, we hope to add bracelets and accessories to our store that remind others to stay genuine.

The trauma and trials in your life do not define who you are. We are proud of the stories that we have on our website so far and look forward to many more to come.

What matters most to you? Why?
The people we are able to inspire and the lives we will change mean the most to us.

A lot of our friends and family have gone through or seen others go through dealing with substance abuse, physical/sexual/verbal abuse, abandonment, mental health struggles, death, sickness, betrayal, and other trials. We want to teach others how to stay genuine while finding a healthy way to cope with what they have gone through.

Our website will be a platform where people can go to find stories about others who have gone through the very same trials they have. They will be able to purchase a shirt as a reminder of how that person dealt with their struggles.

Contact Info:

• Email: contact@genuineme.org
• Website: genuineme.org
• Instagram: @genuineme_official
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/genuinemeofficial/