Kenneth Cole

After 25 years of addressing meaningful (and some not so important) social issues, we wanted to commemorate the occasion by focusing the charitable endeavors of our company under one empowering initiative. It seemed only fitting to call it, AWEARNESS –KENNETH COLE.

Kenneth has described himself as, “a reasonably successful designer, businessman, parent, philanthropist, and frustrated activist.” These frustrations have driven him to create his own AWEARNESS blog to encourage a relevant and inspiring dialogue for social change - and now he’s set his sights on more actions than words.

But this is Kenneth Cole, so words are never too far away. In fact, it was his idea for a book that became the genesis for what AWEARNESS –KENNETH COLE really stands for.

Kenneth started reaching out to his influential friends and contacts to ask them to write personal essays about how they were inspired to be called to action. These wise words of experience are in the form of advice on how anyone can utilize their own unique resources to give back.

Throughout this enlightening process, he realized that we were just brushing the surface of opportunity in using our platform of the Kenneth Cole community and we could do much more. The book, AWEARNESS: Inspiring Stories About How to Make a Difference is only the beginning - no good deed should go unpublished (or untold) and so we need to help others create more inspiring stories in the future.

Through the AWEARNESS Fund, we aim to grow and activate the AWEARNESS community by supporting, encouraging and empowering acts of service, volunteerism and social change.

We’ve just begun, but we will build AWEARNESS in phases as we increase our membership, partnerships and product offerings.

OUR GOALS:

Continue to design, produce and distribute merchandise that communicates the brand’s important social message under: AWEARNESS –KENNETH COLE.

100% of the net proceeds* from the sale of AWEARNESS merchandise will be donated to the AWEARNESS Fund – a not-for-profit entity that supports, encourages and empowers acts of service, volunteerism and social change.

Recognize CHANGE AGENTS – those influential individuals who demonstrate tireless commitment to their cause – and then share their stories with the world to inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

Reach into the community to recruit and create the AWEARNESS Alliance – a dedicated coalition of volunteers who strive to make a difference.

Provide AWEARNESS Alliance members with easy access to a varied and abundant amount of volunteering opportunities.

In addition, we will reward AWEARNESS Alliance members for their
dedication by:

- making our stores available to host fundraising events to raise money, awareness and recruitment for eligible, local service-based organizations.

- automatically entering members to win tickets to exclusive AWEARNESS and Kenneth Cole New York events.

- sending product previews and exclusive offers.

And that’s it, so far.
It’s enough to bring volunteers to your eyes… hopefully.