CONWAY, Ark. (March 14, 2016) – More than a decade after graduating from Hendrix, Ashley English Vickers ’04 is “moonlighting” with
The Charmed Root, a new online gift business that celebrates women and supports small craft businesses.
The Charmed Root was officially launched last month in Norman, Oklahoma, where Vickers also serves as marketing director for a leading collegiate-licensed headwear manufacturer and raises her two young children.
“My co-founder, Erin Hamby, and I are two mamas that recognize the many hats we wear as women – mom, friend, wife, caregiver, teacher, organizer, and the list goes on,” said Vickers. “Moreover, life is hard, challenging and rewarding all at the same
time… and there are many occasions that we want to lend support, encouragement, or pure gratitude to the women who make our lives great.”
“There are many times we’ve wanted to celebrate a friend with a gift that would last longer than flowers or send a little more than a card to a friend who is going through a hard time, but there’s never been an easy way to do it. We are believers in
the importance of taking the time to do just that – and we want to make it easy and meaningful at the same time. It is with this goal in mind that The Charmed Root was born.”
The Charmed Root is a lifestyle box full of hand-picked gift items that change each month. Each curated box includes three to five surprise items, blending together relaxation, fashion, décor, motivation, beauty and other meaningful areas in her life.
The January box was the official launch box for The Charmed Root and featured C. Pate Jewelry and Bumble and Pine, two Oklahoma-based small businesses. Vickers and Hamby gifted the inaugural boxes to the women in their lives who inspired The Charmed
Root.
The Charmed Root has multiple gifting options including a one-time gift ($45 per box including shipping) or a monthly subscription ($42 per month including shipping). With monthly gifting, The Charmed Root will email the subscriber each month to determine where to ship the box that
month. Each gift includes an optional hand-written notecard. The February box from The Charmed Root is the first box available for sale to the public at
www.thecharmedroot.com.
Vickers’ primary role in The Charmed Root is marketing outreach and digital strategy. She spent five years at a brand strategy firm in Little Rock before earning her MBA degree in marketing from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management and later working in a marketing management role at Walmart’s
corporate office.
This spring, Vickers’ lifelong friend and fellow Hendrix alumna Christa Smith Berry ’04 of Austin, Texas, will join The Charmed Root.
“Since our launch in mid-January, we have experienced the perfect storm … quick growth of the business in combination with Erin transitioning her family to Austin, Texas,” said Vickers. “It set the stage perfectly for Christa to join the business.”
Like Vickers, Berry is a fellow Hendrix psychology major with extensive marketing experience. She is the Director of Brand and Marketing at United Way for Greater Austin. Prior to United Way, she worked at an Austin-based PR and marketing firm, where
she concentrated on product launches.
“For a while now, I’ve been ready to have a personal sense of ownership over something beyond my day job. Ashley came to me with a few questions in the beginning, which naturally led to more and more conversations about how I might be able to help. From there it just seemed like a perfect fit. The Charmed Root is a
startup I could help support from the ground up plus I get to work with my lifelong friend—it couldn’t be better!
“I enjoy the intricacies of product marketing,” Berry said. “So I hope to bring that experience to The Charmed Root, and, more broadly, I hope to add to Ashley and her co-founder’s creative brainpower.”
Before starting the business, all three partners had received mailed gift boxes for birthdays and other occasions.
“We fell in love with the experience of getting a box of fun surprises in the mail,” said Vickers. “But when we went to send similar gifts ourselves, we struggled to find a gift box that celebrates women in all walks of life with a variety of interests… so we created it.”
“There is a strong desire to recognize and celebrate each other. Given the traditional holidays such as Mother’s Day, Teachers Appreciation, Boss’s Day, along with the increased popularity of holidays such as Grandparents Day, Siblings Day, Friendship Day, it’s obvious people are ready to celebrate the women in their
lives,” she said. “The tough part is finding something unique and meaningful that’s also easy. That’s where we come in!
Beyond web and social media, the partners promote the business at local events, such as community art walks, Vickers said.
“We would love to see The Charmed Root continue to evolve, but always stay true to the mission with which it started – make it easy to celebrate your village by offering hand-picked gifts that inspire, encourage and delight her.”
About Hendrix College
Hendrix College is a private liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Founded in 1876 and affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884, Hendrix is featured in Colleges
That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges and is nationally recognized in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings for academic quality, community, innovation, and value. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.