Grace Wallace Moyd ’13 began her philanthropic journey before she launched her business, WritefullyHis. Her mother, Beth Dashiell Wallace ’82, now associate dean of students, came to Wofford, pregnant with Moyd, as the nurse in health services. Moyd lived on campus for the first nine years of her life.
“It was this place … that provided the network of safety to start a business as a student,” says Moyd. “I deeply value my time growing up on campus and then continuing that journey as a student."
Moyd got the idea for her company when she was studying abroad during her junior year and came across a reading about a family in Uganda.
“This family could not send their five children to school because they could not afford to purchase pencils for each one of them,” Moyd recalls. “Because of this, the father went out one morning and purchased one pencil and broke it into fifths so each one of his children could go to school.”
This humble act by the father allowed his children to pursue their education and inspired Moyd to create a company to provide necessary supplies and resources.
“I had every educational opportunity available to me,” Moyd says. “I wanted to start something that could help alleviate this burden for parents and jump-start a child’s schooling with the paper and pencils they needed.”
Moyd began WritefullyHis as a stationery company that donated 20 percent of the proceeds to purchase school supplies for students in East Africa. Six years later, with the support of her extended family — the Dashiells — Moyd leveraged her business and experiences to launch Thrive Global Project. The nonprofit organization provides educational resources to vulnerable students across the globe, and Moyd serves as executive director.
“Our goal at Thrive Global Project is to create opportunities for students to have educational resources and help them to thrive. We strongly believe that breaking the cycle of poverty for the next generation begins with access to quality education,” she says.
Thrive Global Project provided resources for 2,500 students across five continents in its first year. The organizations goal for 2019 is to impact 10,000 students across the globe.
“These early, formative years dictate how far students will go into their schooling,” says Moyd. “We see that need, so partnering as early as we can with these students and forming positive interactions around education is where we choose to invest our money.”
To learn more about Thrive Global Project, visit www.thriveglobalproject.org or follow the organization on social media @thriveglobalproject.
By Hayley Younginer ’19