My name is Julie Tallman and I am an Independent Sales Director with Mary Kay. What that means is I have a group of women and men (yes, MEN!) who have opened their own Mary Kay businesses who I train, coach and mentor as they build their businesses to be successful. For the past 9 years I worked at News 13 WLOS in Asheville – my last job there for 7 of those years was as a Marketing Specialist, which is “fancy speak” for I worked with clients to develop advertising campaigns. I started my Mary Kay business just over two years ago for some extra money and fun and it took off, eventually allowing me to quit my full-time job to pursue Mary Kay exclusively.

Mary Kay as a company is very focused on Social Responsibility and has a program called “Pink Changing Lives” as well as a charitable foundation that donates millions of dollars to two causes – cancers that affect women and domestic violence. When the company celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8th with an attempt to break the World’s Record for the number of makeovers ever performed in one day, some of the area Mary Kay Directors decided to join in on the fun and to choose a worthy cause that aligned with our companies focus and mission of helping break the cycle of domestic violence. We held an event called a Beauty Bash with Benefits at the Biltmore Park Hilton where more than 80 women attended and received complimentary makeovers. We chose Helpmate as our non-profit to assist with fund and awareness raising:

For over 30 years, Helpmate has served as Buncombe County’s primary provider of crisis-level services designed specifically for – and offered exclusively to – victims of domestic violence and their children. Consultants donated 20% of their proceeds from the sale of their products the night of the March 8th event to Helpmate. Attendees were encouraged to purchase hand creams and “beauty break” gifts for the women at Helpmate as well, and when they did their consultant matched their donation with an equal product donation – the idea was to give women a token of our love and care and to allow those women going through so much to have something a little bit special. Between those two efforts, we were able to donate $410 in Cash and More than $800 in Product to Helpmate from our efforts the night of March 8th. When we arrived at the shelter we met with Ann Flynn, Acting Executive Director and Development Director at Helpmate. Several of the residents were in the shelter at the time of delivery and we were able to give them gifts at that time. The rest we handed over to the staff of the shelter to distribute as they saw fit. We are honored and humbled to work with Helpmate, who serve as a constant resource to women and children in situations of domestic violence through their shelter, their hotline and their counseling services. If any of your readers should like to also assist Helpmate or another favorite charity benefiting women or children we are offering a fun and easy way to give back.