Keshet Partners with Creative Souls                                                                               

Five Keshet artists have been selected to collaborate with Creative Souls, Inc. Creative Souls produces wearables that feature artwork by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This unique, local project is the creation of social entrepreneur, Drew McNamara. Drew spent many summers working with Keshet at camp before launching his business and beginning his career in the disability services field.

You can purchase drawstring bags, shirts and shoes (coming soon!) with artwork by Noah, Adam, Estella, Samantha and Michelle. A portion of each sale goes directly to the artist. Check out all of the products here.

History of Creative Souls

Creative Souls began in a classroom in March of 2017 in a Social Entrepreneurship course at the University of Illinois during the first semester of Drew’s junior year. The professor of the course told each student to bring an idea that could make a social change in society. Unfortunately, Drew’s idea didn't lead anywhere at the time, but that would change the following year during an internship with Illini Hillel.

During the internship, Drew was able to bring Creative Souls to life with the support of Hillel. In March 2018, a Kickstarter campaign for Creative Souls was launched. It raised a lot of money, but not enough for him to collect it. Instead of giving up, Drew launched another campaign where he raised $10,500 for Creative Souls. He also managed to find an investor.

Now, artists from all over – including Keshet artists - can submit their designs though the website.

The art is scanned and can be printed onto shoes, shirts, etc. Creative Souls provides the opportunity for individuals with different abilities to earn money by creating art. Each time their design is printed onto shoes or apparel, they earn money. The artwork on all products is designed by artists with disabilities.

Message from Drew

Creative Souls is extremely excited to work with artists from Keshet! If you want to impact the artists and future employees of Creative Souls, please share what we are doing to your classmates, peers, friends, family, companies, etc! The more people that know about us, the bigger impact we can make - one 'Creative Soul' at a time.