How youth-led sewing and planting build confidence and community in the Bay Area
Princess Modupe is the founder and executive director of SNE Cares, a youth-led nonprofit known for its free “Sewn Together” sewing cohorts that teach creativity, sustainable fashion, and various other engaging activities to connect with and serve the Bay Area community.
Editor’s note: This interview is part of the Hopelab series, Built by Us: Gen Z Women on Purpose, Passion & Power, and has been edited for length and clarity.
I love anything plant-related, like gardening and making plants, like kokedamas, which is a Japanese style of planting. You just really get your hands dirty, and there’s a science to it. Actually, touching soil and dirt helps better your mental health. I also love crafting with papier-mache or doing ceramics. I love anything that gets my hands dirty. And, I do a lot of scrapbooking and upcycled work with sewing.
My community is the reason I keep going. They’re the reason I wake up and I do what I do. Honestly, without them and without SNE, there is no me.
SNE Cares began in my backyard. I live in subsidized housing in a low-income area, and when COVID hit, I couldn’t go outside to sell my house plants anymore. The media outlets were reporting on the dwindling food supply in grocery stores, so I went to my backyard and started planting. This led the kids in my community to start planting with me and gave me the idea to start a free planting program. From there, it grew into more community programs for kids and their families. We now offer a dance team, field trips, sewing classes, gardening classes, financial literacy cohorts, and ultimately solidified SNE Cares as a nonprofit.
I’m most proud of becoming the adult I wish I had growing up. I always wished I had the chance to participate in extracurricular activities, but my parents were always busy working, or sometimes there was a cost barrier and I just couldn’t afford to go. Now, through SNE Cares, I get to offer free or low-cost opportunities to my neighbors and the community I grew up in. Everyone deserves a chance to learn and gain new skills, regardless of where they live or how much they make.
The Ambitious Divas Majorette Dance Team started as a way to connect with my nieces! This led to them asking if we could start an official dance team because they wanted to perform. Within an hour, we had a name, Ambitious Divas, and a plan. We eliminate all barriers within this program: there’s no cost, and I handle picking up and dropping off every single diva who wants to be on the team. Parents don’t need to worry about anything other than allowing their diva to show up and dance with us. Operating this way allows any diva who is interested in joining us the opportunity to do so. Each one, teach one. Each one, reach one. No diva gets left behind.
It looks like what we do at SNE Cares. When young people want something, they can come to me, and we try to bring their ideas to life. There is no wishing over here. Even our sewing classes are youth-led by a high schooler. She organizes and comes up with project ideas and how we’re going to teach them. We do things differently over here; they’re in charge.
Young people have changed me into a doer. When you’re a new nonprofit, you don’t have the funding to do everything you want, but we work together to figure it out. It takes a lot of work, effort, and collaboration to make things happen. Our young people have made me truly believe in myself, my capabilities as a leader, and that I can do anything that I put my heart into. I honor them by answering their wishes and developing programs that they want, ask for, and need.
My advice to new “doers” is to just do it. Go for it! You have to start somewhere, and once you get started, you’ll understand why you’re doing it; you’ll want to keep doing it, or maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll want to do something else, but to get to that place, you have to start and do it.
Morning routine: up at 4:45–5:00 AM, tea, meditation, Pilates.
Big goal: skydiving.
Craft crush: turning “trash” into art.