Zoe first started doing the media rounds in the summer of 2014. It began with an interview on WMBM Gospel Radio. That was straightforward enough. A few months later she went on camera for the first time in a feature promoting an Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship initiative in Florida. In December that year both The Miami Times and Miami Herald published profiles of Zoe as a chief executive.
As she grew more confident in interviews, Zoe found that people were paying attention. She had caught the public’s imagination. Everyone wanted to hear what she had to say, to know more about what she was trying to achieve. In fact, by the time Bloomberg Businessweek devoted a full page to her at the end of 2017, Zoe had become much more than a State-wide name. Zoe was making an impact in Georgia, Mississippi and Texas, as well as overseas in Haiti and Zambia. In more recent years Zoe has extended her reach, embracing India, Jamaica, Trinidad, Cuba, The Netherlands and the UK.
There are two facts about Zoe that make her success and international achievements all the more remarkable. The first is that in 2014 at the time of her media blitz, Zoe was nine years old. By the time she celebrates her eighteenth birthday in 2024 the organisation she created will have been operating for more than a decade.
The second fact is that Zoe is a philanthropist. Not someone who has come from great wealth and decided to give it away at an early age; not someone who is merely a generous giver or who makes spontaneous kind gestures for those in need, wonderful though it is to do both; but someone who identified a problem in society that was causing pain, sadness and hardship, and who then created a long-term sustainable mechanism to address it.
It all began in 2010 on Zoe’s first day in pre-kindergarten at Miami County Day School. Walking into the classroom she discovered that she was the only black girl in her class. ‘I was bullied because of the colour of my skin and because my hair was so puffy,’ she said later. Even as a little girl, Zoe was not so much cowed by the experience as emboldened by it. Before long she had an idea, one that would help other girls like her who had to face taunts or felt isolated, out of place, alone, set apart unfairly, because of the colour of their skin.
Zoe shared the idea with her mother. She wanted to give out dolls of colour to other girls with black or brown skin who were less fortunate than she was. She wanted them to feel that they were beautiful, not odd, not alone, and to grow in confidence by developing a positive image of themselves. Zoe’s mother, Nakia, gave her all the encouragement and support she needed to test her idea, asking people to donate dolls of colour. So great was the response and the media interest that Nakia’s daughter became the founder of a non-profit organisation, Zoe’s Dolls, at the age of 11.
Every little girl deserves a doll that reflects their image. Every little girl has skin that is perfect for them whatever colour it is. It’s as simple as that for Zoe’s Dolls. ‘Anywhere a girl needs a doll, we deliver to,’ Zoe says. ’It doesn’t matter how little they are, how old they are.’ In 2022, the number of dolls distributed around the United States and the world surpassed 50,000. Zoe’s Dolls also delivers seven separate empowerment programmes, sells merchandise to fund further expansion, and has won the support of tennis star, Serena Williams, who first found the charity on Instagram.
As for other young people becoming game-changing philanthropists, Zoe doesn’t see why not. ‘It doesn’t matter how small or how weird people may think it is – do it. Do not let anyone tell you that you can’t do something.’