Entrepreneur transforms late sister's dream into successful business
Written by Laura Grunke
Edited by: Tyler Jones
Stevie Hopkins, right, in his office with his personal assistant. Photo credit: Sarah Martinson
When he was 17-months-old, Hopkins was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease where the brain stops sending messages to the muscles eventually causing them to stop and shrink. It is described on 3ELove’s website as “awesomitis.” He strives to use his for-profit venture as a tool to empower other people with disabilities.
His parents raised him and his sister side-by-side, equally, not letting them compare themselves to other kids their age. It wasn’t until late elementary school that Hopkins started learning that there was something about him and Annie that made people treat them differently. Their school didn’t want to give them Illinois’ standardized tests because they didn’t think they would need an education. Hopkins says it was a constant struggle for him and Annie to receive the same educational opportunities.
In middle school, a disabled child who used a wheelchair died, prompting malicious questions directed at Hopkins like, “When are you going to die?” Kids threw footballs at him on the playground and made fun of him and Annie for always being together, making jokes about them being boyfriend and girlfriend.
“My sister and I were really natural targets because we were the two different kids,” he says.
After Hopkins had hip surgery while he was transitioning into high school, he became addicted to painkillers and antidepressants. The next two years of his life were a blur.
One day, Hopkins says he woke up and realized he had no friends and didn’t know who he was.
Living in the students-with-disabilities dorm during college, Hopkins met many students with similar experiences to his and learned more about himself and what it means to have a disability in today’s world. He describes it as a “wake-up call that I’m not alone.”
As Annie’s wheelchair heart symbol gained popularity, she had it trademarked and got it tattooed on her shoulder.
Hopkins says both he and Annie felt similar frustrations about companies that worked to serve or inspire people with disabilities but did so from a not-for-profit, charitable standpoint. They wanted to make money, and they wanted people with disabilities to feel empowered by them making money to pursue their own goals.
envisioned. But at the end of the day, it’s still rooted in her philosophies and ideas.”
Hopkins now has 19 employees, serving roughly 400,000 international customers. The customers range from non-profits to colleges and corporations and hospitals and represent 35 different countries. The company offers a wide range of products such as flannel pajama pants, greeting cards and car decals. Since 2010, the entire operation, both the designing and printmaking, has been housed under one roof at a warehouse in Batavia, Ill.
Some of the employees are people with disabilities such as Hopkins, and other do not. The company works with a nearby school to provide paid internships for students who don’t fit the traditional education model, says Liz Hendrickson, a 3ELove customer service representative who has been with the company for almost 10 years.
As a businessperson with a disability, Hopkins says he hasn’t always been treated fairly.
“I wasn’t always respected as a person who’s running a business,” he says. “I was treated like a person with a disability who isn’t able to be successful and that’s a whole part of the reason why I designed 3ELove, to change the perception.”
Personally, Hopkins says he doesn’t identify with the traditional handicapped symbol. The wheelchair shaped like 3ELove’s signature heart gives it a positive meaning to him and his customers.
“The whole idea behind the symbol and the company isn’t just to sell t-shirts,” Hopkins adds. “It’s to start a conversation about disabilities and about our lives but start it in the context of real-life stories and real-life situations.”
After the success of 3ELove and the wheelchair heart design, Hopkins and his company are being sought out for more design work by colleges, nonprofits, families and bands.
“I was like, why not?” he says. “Why would I turn down free money and an opportunity to grow my business?”
Hopkins has some experience in the music industry working as a promoter in 2007 and 2008. His prior experience helped him build a successful band merchandising business, which makes up a large percent of 3ELove’s business and keeps it profitable. He designs shirts, flags, buttons and other items for bands including Real Friends, Modern Baseball and about 40 other clients.
“They never saw me as handicapable, they were never fazed by the fact that I wasn’t a music merchandising company,” says Hopkins of his first band client, Knuck Puck. “I was 3ELove but they didn’t care, they knew that I was doing a good job for them and liked what I brought to the table.”
-shirts whir through a garment printing press filling a drafty warehouse
with the metallic scent of ink. The printing presses are stationed in the back of the warehouse lighting the room with a orange glow and filling it with warmth.
Dedicated workers fold the T-shirts and place them on rows of shelves lined against the walls. The shirts are carefully folded and organized on the shelves by color and size. On each shirt is a symbol of a person in a wheelchair shaped liked heart. The design is known as the “International Symbol of Acceptance” created by a now seasoned entrepreneur with his sister, in 2007, during his third year of college.
Stevie Hopkins and his sister Annie, who passed away in 2009, went to college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. At the time, the siblings were living in a students-with-disabilities dorm and Hopkins found himself in some hot water after he and his friends got caught dating their personal care assistants.
“We really didn’t care. We’re 21 or 22, and we didn’t care about rules and we really didn’t think that there was much that we were doing wrong,” Hopkins says.
As a way of retaliating the school, Hopkins and the other members of his dorm, started a 200-person bar crawl that Annie designed T-shirts.
“We designed a shirt that said the name of our dorm is for lovers and the back of it was ‘The Top 10 Reasons to Date Your PA,’” Hopkins says. “My sister Annie was in charge of the T-shirts and she drew the symbol for the front of the shirt.”
The name of Hopkin’s T-shirt company is 3ELove, which means Embrace, Educate, and Empower—embrace diversity, educate your community and empower one another. Hopkins says Annie, who had spinal muscular atrophy, believed that if you did those three things, it would lead to self-acceptance and acceptance of others.
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Being an entrepreneur with a disability wasn’t easy, Hopkins says. People didn’t take him seriously as a businessman and that hurt his confidence. Starting out, he says business professionals would try to help him, assuming he couldn't handle the task at hand himself. When he was involved in the cutthroat music business in the mid-2000s, he found this to be especially true.
He says another big issue for him is the high cost of his 24-hour care, with daily caregivers and office assistants costing upwards of $130,000 a year.
“That’s an expense that 99.99 percent of businesses don’t have to deal with especially when the founder, the guy that runs the entire ship, has to have another person that either he or she is dependent on to make sure that things are running smoothly,” Hopkins says.
Hopkins recognizes that 3ELove’s customer base is slow–growing because many customers lack disposable income to buy merchandise. However, he still sees growth potential for his company. Even though his band merchandising business and 3ELove are the same entity, he sees them as almost separate projects. He says the growth of the band merchandising is what gives 3ELove the capital to expand.
“I could see us being a 50,000-square-feet building with 150 employees,” he says.
3ELove continues to grow and change, as does Hopkins. He says he’s at peace with his life and his disability for, he hopes, the last time. His and Annie’s unique vision for the company and its impact on people who have disabilities is what makes it a strong, entrepreneurial progressive endeavor.
“People with disabilities are capable of a lot given the right opportunities and the right mindset and the right empowerment,” Hopkins says.
Hopkins with his sister at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Courtesy of Stevie Hopkins
Hopkins’ life abruptly changed when Annie died in 2009. She died from a routine procedure during a hospital visit. Hopkins says they had become each other’s other halves after living quite literally side-by-side for their entire lives.
“She was like everything to me and I was everything to her,” he says. “I didn’t realize that. I mean I realized it then, but it took me 20 years to find it, and then five years later it was ripped away.”
Annie died just as the Great Recession hit, which meant and Hopkins found himself scrambling to keep 3ELove afloat financially as he was also grieving over the loss of his best friend. With Annie gone, he took over the company and began to shape it into what it is today.
“The company is her vision, her idea,” Hopkins says. “I’ve evolved it 10 times over beyond what she and I ever talked about or she
Annie Hopkins' 3E Love tattoo. Courtesy of Stevie Hopkins
“They never saw me as handicapable."
Poster in Stevie's office of his first music client, Knuckle Puck. Photo credit: Sarah Martinson