By MAGNOLIA LAFLEUR | Reporter
Pacific Palisades-based boutique elysewalker partnered with Cancer Cartel on Wednesday, March 2, donating 10% of its proceeds to the non-profit organization. The event also offered complimentary styling services by Meg Chapman and Jordan LaValle of The Closet Files—a fashion consulting firm.
Cancer survivors Kerry Solmonsen and sisters Katy Tinney and Shelly Tinney-Miller founded Cancer Cartel in 2019 with a mission to provide relief and financial assistance through awarding grants, fine clothing, gas money, mortgage payments and more to those fighting cancer.
“Once you go through something like cancer, you just know that you’re meant for more,” Tinney said to the Palisadian-Post. “We knew it had to be something fun and it had to be something fabulous that could help people.”
All three women—who overcame their own battles with cancer—said they reached out to The Closet Files to help others, and were connected to Elyse Walker through LaValle, whose sister is the president of elysewalker.
“Meg and I have both been deeply impacted from losing people to cancer and so it just felt very fortuitous to be able to connect with them,” LaValle said to the Post.
“What’s great about the Cancer Cartel is we understood first-hand how they get their money and exactly what they do with their money, who it goes to and how it impacts others,” Chapman said. “You can get disenfranchised with large non-profits if you can’t see where and who you are impacting. With this, we know exactly who is being supported and that’s really great.”
After Solemonson, Tinney and Tinney-Miller dealt with cancer, they said they had a keen awareness of the exorbitant costs that come with having the disease.
“What people don’t realize is that all of your costs of living go up when you’re facing something like cancer,” Tinny-Miller explained. “You’re putting way more fuel in your car because you’re taking more trips to the hospital, you’re eating out more as you are not at home and you’re paying for parking. Your everyday costs double, so we want to ensure that we can help lift the burden of those expenses.”
“While in the fight of your life, you should be able to focus 100% on getting well-—not on how much money cancer is costing you,” according to Cancer Cartel’s website.
All three women decided they wanted to focus on fashion as the means in which they raise funds due to their love of fashion, and to create a means for raising funds that uplifts others and provides a happy fashion-lift to those battling cancer.
“We raise money in many different ways,” Solemenson said to the Post. “Our main idea was to become The Real Real of the nonprofit world by taking donated luxury items, like the ones sold here at elysewalker, and we were going to sell them on our site. We figured everyone has something in their closet they are not wearing anymore, so we could just re-sell that and give it directly to people fighting cancer.
“Since then the idea has evolved and we actually work with The Real Real to do that. We also wanted to partner with great brands so we can have these great events where we can meet people and help others.”
Elyse Walker, who founded the store 1999, has built elsyewalker to be one of the Palisades’ most popular high-end stores with brand name apparel, jewelry and accessories. She said she was happy to support Cancer Cartel.
“This is a fabulous opportunity to combine our love for fashion and our drive to help the community by raising funds for cancer fighters,” Walker shared in a statement. “The team at Cancer Cartel is pioneering an incredible initiative and we’re honored to be a small part of their journey and to support the cause.”
Built through the pandemic, and creating partnerships that can propel their cause to help people through one of the “hardest times of their life,” Cancer Cartel is always looking to create partnerships and for donations that will aid them in helping people feel and look good.
“Cancer is really expensive and there are so many ways for us to give back to cancer warriors,” Tinney said. “One of the things we say at Cancer Cartel is we use cosmetics and fashion to get us through our journey … When Katie lost her hair, she used fashion as a way to take away from that, to empower herself. For us it was definitely healing and we hope that we can inspire other people.
“Whether it’s providing fashion or groceries, we hear directly from the people we give to about their journey and work to deliver them as much relief and joy as possible.”
For more information, visit cancercartel.com or email cancercartel@gmail.com.
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