P hilanthropy is the backdrop for Simmons and Silver and Riley Founder Lola Banjo. Banjo, who created the “Buy 1, Give 5: Empowering Women” initiative through Silver & Riley is committed to providing meaningful support to women entrepreneurs globally. Through this program 5 percent of Silver & Riley’s profits go directly to help up and coming women business leaders. It’s easy to see why Simmons and Banjo are a match made in heaven. They’re two women well-versed in reshaping the mold of fashion while uplifting their communities, which makes what’s next for Silver & Riley something to anticipate. Simmons’s other big project looks inward with just as much care and attention to detail. “Wellness… is always able to be a great inspiration to what I’m doing in my professional life,” Simmons explains, passionately cooing over her new pursuit, U4IA Wellness. Candidly speaking on her past, Simmons expounds, “I have had my struggles over the years with anxiety… gone through different seasons, even seasons of depression, and I’ve always leaned into finding ways to bring everything back in alignment, and I want to be able to lend that to my audience.” Simmons also acknowledges the discord of living in a day and age where wellness can easily take a backseat to societal expectations of success. “We’re in hustle culture. Everyone’s hustling for their dreams or goals, whatever those may be, and sometimes we neglect ourselves, and I want to be a positive reinforcement… nothing can flow unless we fill up our cups.” As an online, communal health and wellness space, U4IA provides product recommendations, tips, and relatable stories to women of all shapes and sizes who are attempting to navigate their minds and bodies and become their best selves. “Philanthropy has always been super important [to me]… and I feel like this is going to be my way that I give back to the people who have supported me for so many years, and something that also personally helps me,” Simmons states. “I just want to give… and I feel like wellness will be the key for me… It makes me so happy to know that advice that I find or topics that I go and study and bring to my audience, that people are benefiting from them, and that just brings me so much joy, more joy than even the creative work I do. Being able to help in a way that’s important to me.” “So that is why I got involved in the wellness field and want to build a community where people can come and find information and resources to help them thrive.”
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