Welcome to episode 97 of the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. This is Romy, and I am your host for this episode on a really great social enterprise called Genusee. They are out of Flint, Michigan. Many of you may have heard some tough stories coming out of Flint, Michigan specific to the water crisis over these past few years. You will meet the founders and designers, Ali Rose Van Overbeke and Jack Burns. They discuss their journey in Flint and the whole launch process to date.

Oh, it feels good to be back after a mini-hiatus. Thanks for hanging in there while we made some new shows!

By the way, we have some great episodes coming up next from the east and west coasts culminating with a finale for Season 3 and our episode 100 which will be some interviews from the recent GUS awards held in Detroit.

So subscribe and stay tuned.

Now, let’s see what Natalie has in store for us on the Fun Fuel. What do you have for us, Natalie?

I’m Natalie Hazen and I am bringing you this episode’s Fun Fuel.

In today’s world, you see so many people wearing eyeglasses and on a super bright sunny day they most certainly break out their sunglasses. Glasses have become ultra-fashionable and why shouldn’t they? They most certainly are the very first thing people see when they look at your face unless they aren’t wearing theirs and they just can’t see you.

According to the website lenspick.com, the first vision correction device was invented in 1000 AD and called a reading stone. As you can imagine, it was for farsighted folk who couldn’t read properly and was basically a glass sphere used as a magnifying glass.

Now fast forward to 12th century China and you have the creation of Sunglasses. People back then used flat crystals of smoky quartz that were mounted for personal use to reduce the glare from the sun.

It is also said that these ‘sunglasses’ were used by judges while presiding cases, so as not to give away their emotions. Very interesting.

So, throughout history, mankind has made some very unique and purposeful inventions, including eyeglasses, that truly make our lives easier.

Thanks for listening and now on to the episode.

Fascinating that the first pair of eyeglasses was documented to be in 1000 AD. Thank you, Natalie, your fun fuels are always so interesting!

Let’s jump on in for a listen now to my conversation with Ali Rose Van Overbeke and Jack Burns and their really great company, Genusee.

Romy: So let's tell the listeners about Genusee.

Ali Rose: So Genusee is making eyewear in Flint, Michigan from recycled single-use plastic water bottles that were a result of the Flint water crisis.

Romy: So is it just the eyeglass frames, or are you putting the lenses in and all that?

Ali Rose: Yeah, we're doing everything. The frames are specifically what's made from the recycled water bottles, but we are working with an optical lab, so we do prescription eyeglasses as well as sunglasses.

Romy: So how did you make this connection, or even have this idea?

Ali Rose: Yeah, so Jack and I both went to Parsons together, and worked in a fellowship shortly after graduation, where we kind of learned that we were good working as collaborators. Then in early 2016, I was back in Michigan, I grew up in metro Detroit area. I was volunteering with the Red Cross during the Flint water crisis. Just observing how much plastic, we were delivering cases and cases of bottled water door to door every day, and was kind of just shocked by what was happening, and the need in my own backyard. It was just ... Jack and I are good friends, and it was just started as a super casual conversation of, "This is what's happening in Flint. What can we do with the plastic?" Really just wanting to do something to support the community. Started just asking people in the community specifically like, "What do you need? What does Flint need?" And everyone kept telling us, "Jobs." So we knew this wasn't just going to be a charity, or an NGO, or an art project. We needed to figure out how to start a business that could actually scale, and bring living wage jobs to the city.

Romy: Oh, and so how did you begin even to navigate the process of where you were going to get the bottles? Where did you even start?

Jack Burns: So we started off looking ... Generally, just asking questions, and digging down this rabbit hole further and further to find out where the plastic was going, and what it was becoming, and finding out that there was just this surplus of plastic. Then really sort of hacking the system, and trying to figure out what we wanted to make from this plastic, and what was capable. It turns out you can make ... PET is the same thing as polyester; it's a highly flexible material. So we really had a broad range of things that we could make with this plastic, but we really wanted to make something that was a product of purpose, and a product of need. We found that, with our unique design backgrounds that we ... That eyewear really fit the bill for what we wanted to make because it's both a medical device and a fashion product as well.

Romy: Yeah, and so are you guys designing the frames yourselves?

Ali Rose: Yes.

Romy: Okay, wow that's fun. That's really fun. How do you test that? How have you been prototyping your design?

Ali Rose: I'll let Jack continue with this.

Jack Burns: Yeah, I actually just got out of a meeting during this right now, so.

Jack Burns: So what we do ... How we started off, you know we were very much on a shoestring budget, early on. We invested a lot of time into this, rather than funds in the earlier stages. We're still knee deep in time, but now we have a little bit more funding, so we can allocate that towards prototyping a little bit further. When we first began, we started off just like taking photos of friends, and drawing on top of them, and seeing what sort of face shapes, what sort of shapes worked best with face shapes. So what frames worked best in that regard. Then we laser cut heavyweight paper mockups that we could hold up to our friends' faces, photograph, see what works best. So really trying to find these democratic shapes that could fit anyone and everyone. Then we received some grant funding, and we allocated that funding towards creating 3D printed prototypes. So we've been 3D printing to really flesh out the nuances of the design, and how that fits on the face, and the ergonomics of it all. That's really where the progression of prototyping and design has led us to today.

Romy: That's amazing, I love it.

Ali Rose: Jack touched on it, but we really set out with wanting to create something that was democratically designed, because we were going to launch with ... We knew we only really had the funding to be able to launch with one style, and we wanted to also ... I think customers are so overwhelmed by choice often that it's a bit debilitating. And creating, streamlining, the choice for the customer, and creating a really classic, democratically designed frame that would work as both prescription optical, but as well as sunglasses, and really working from what the median range of measurements of the face are. To be really particular about the design and the shape, so that it could fit as many people as possible.

Romy: Yeah I love it. It's so true. We're overloaded with choices. Even as simple [inaudible] here…especially when people are drawn to a social mission behind a product. They're already kind of excited, and they're likely to do it. It's just easier to narrow it down. How has the local community so far there in Flint, responded so far to what you're doing there?

Ali Rose: So we started ... Obviously, this started really through working with the community when I was getting involved with the Red Cross, and started building really early relationships just through other people that I'd been volunteering with who grew up in the city, and are really ingrained in the culture there. For the past two years, our focus has really been building more community relationships. That's been one of the most important parts of what we're doing. We're working with the Community Foundation in Flint. MADE Institute, which is where we're doing our hiring through. So MADE Institute works with individuals who are structurally unemployable, those who are displaced workers, and returning citizens, so people who are coming out of incarceration. They're doing really amazing work, and that's who we're going to be partnering with to hire our first employees. We're working with St. Luke's New Life Center, which is where our polishing bags are going to be made. Everyone that we have been building these relationships with has been really supportive, really excited, very welcoming.

Ali Rose: You know there has been some community members, who rightfully so, have been very skeptical of neither Jack or I are from Flint. I'm from Michigan, but I don't have l