Los Altos Teen In Business To Save Elephants

LOS ALTOS, CA -- While most teenage girls engage in boys, fun and fashion, Angelina Lue is taking her fashion passion to a new place by using those skills to protect the mammals known as protectors themselves.

Lue started Ivory Tees two years ago at a mere 13 years of age. Through the sales of jewelry, fashion accessories, T-shirts and sweatshirts, she funnels about 20 percent of the proceeds to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. The philanthropic organization fosters baby elephants left orphaned because their mothers were killed by poachers.

The humanitarian effort came to Lue when she saw a documentary called "The Ivory Game" on Netflix. She decided to take the river of tears and channel them into action.

"I thought it was extremely moving. I've always been interested in the environment, and I've always been interested in fashion," she told Patch. The two made for an ideal fit for a quasi business plan, given her father's entrepreneur background.

"I guess it's in my blood," she said.

Granted, she may be down to earth, but this is no ordinary teenager. While other kids were slamming lockers and shoving others in the hallways of public school, this Type A achiever was attending the Khan Lab School, an independent Mountain View-based academy for ambitious youngsters who work on projects. She now attends Los Altos High School, and with a wink and a nod, urges her friends to sell her product.

After all, this is the generation that owns social media. Lue estimates she's sold between 100 to 200 of the shirts at $23.97 a piece. Sweatshirts cost $16 more, but who's counting?

To meet Lue is to witness an activist spreading her wings -- not necessarily a business person at heart. Her motives are focused on the heart of the wildlife trust -- the Orphan's Project, which works to save elephants from South Africa, Nairobi, Zambia and Kenya where the organization is based. She is quickly learning how crucial marketing is to the mechanics of a business. Each time she makes money, she invests it back in the company to try to promote it more.

Through the wildlife trust, Lue has sponsored Luggard -- who was found shot twice as a baby. Ivory Tees funds his food and medicine. Another, Enkesha, was discovered as a baby with her trunk caught in a poachers trap. The tales may break your heart.

It appears elephants that have endured a longstanding problem of poaching have evolved with shorter tusks, and National Geographic has reported research to prove this notion. A 2015 study conducted by Duke University and the Kenya Wildlife Service compared the tusks of elephants captured between 2005 and 2013 with those of elephants culled between 1966 and 1968 (that is, before significant poaching took place in the late 1970s and early 1980s) and found significant differences in the size of their trunks.

Perhaps fitting a shirt on a person's torso can help save the babies. Check out Ivory Tees at ivorytees.com.

--Top image via Shutterstock