Earrings with a Purpose: 2 local high schoolers use their creativity to help others

As kids head back to school, we found high school best friends who spent part of their summer using their creativity to help others.

They came up with Earrings with a Purpose, where leather scraps become cute earrings.

“A lot of people like the green right now,” said Addison Pozza, Hampton High School Junior.

And they like the idea of where the money is going that Addison and Ella Hoffman are raising with each pair they sell.

“Especially the owners (of places they set up in), they’re really invested in trying to help us get it going,” said Addison.

It got going back in January when Addison and Ella decided that crafting earrings would be a good way to raise money for charities.

“We just made one batch and I feel like we thought it was going to be a one-time thing but we just kept going with it,” said Ella, Our Lady of the Sacred Heart junior.

Now they spend five hours at a time to make 30 pairs of earrings from donated scrap leather. They sell them for $15 a piece as a pop-up shop or at events.

They’ve raised $3,000 in less than a year and they donate all the money to a group or person who could use it.

One of their first donations was to Hearth House, where they bought supplies for the free store for moms experiencing homelessness or domestic violence.

“Being able to have access to that store and their necessities, as I said before, is really critical so Addison and Ella really helped us with that and we’re so grateful,” said Morgan Cable, Community Engagement Coordinator at Hearth.

In addition, Addison and Ella have raised money for the food bank at OLSH, the Caring Closet at Hampton’s Wyland Elementary School and for an Allderdice student attending Clarion this fall.

And they’re about to restock a Sunshine Cart for Allegheny General Hospital for families in the waiting room.

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