Student Success Stories

​Allyson Ahlstrom

“The Baker Retail Center provides amazing opportunities to learn from and connect with experienced retail leaders. I love attending the weekly Baker lunches and hearing about the many different roles that exist within retail companies. Additionally, the center has been instrumental in providing advice about my retail non-profit venture, Threads for Teens.”

Allyson Ahlstrom, a senior at the Wharton School founded the non-profit organization Threads for Teens in January 2010 that outfits at-risk teen girls in free brand-new clothing. Over the past 6.5 years, over 5,000 at-risk teen girls received clothing from partners rue21, Moroccanoil, Claire’s, and Keds. To accomplish this, Allyson raised over $500,000 in clothing and monetary contributions. Threads for Teens has permanent storefront locations in San Francisco, Minneapolis, San Antonio, with more on-deck to open. Additionally, each summer the organization goes on tour across the US, via semi-truck mobile boutique, to give girls clothing and host girl empowerment summits. Through this outreach, Threads for Teens has empowered girls in 49 U.S. states. At Penn, Allyson is pursuing a Bachelors of Science in Economics with concentrates in Finance and Real Estate, and minors in Art History.

www.threadsforteens.org
www.facebook.com/threadsforteens
www.instagram.com/threadsforteens
www.youtube.com/c/threadsforteensorganization

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