By Khalida Sarwari
In between sports, extracurricular activities, school and social lives, it’s hard to imagine when twin sisters Madeline and Gabrielle Pollock and their friend Kate Lally find time to run a business, but there they were on the front lawn of Kate’s grandmother’s house on a pleasantly warm summer day, doing just that.
Decked in matching red and white striped T-shirts and khaki shorts, the girls maintained a calm demeanor as they switched between leading 14 little girls in a hula hoop activity and sending each one off to their parents with a pink and white polka-dot backpack, signifying the end of a successful first day of their popular AG Sisters summer camp.
“AG” stands for American Girl, a line of dolls popular with pre-teen girls. Big fans of the dolls themselves, the Pollock sisters, both sophomores at Los Gatos High School, and their friend Kate, a freshman at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, hosted a doll camp last summer for local girls at Kate’s grandmother’s house on Via Colina in Saratoga. It’s a three-hour camp where young girls are invited to bring their dolls and participate in craft activities, games and free play on the sprawling front lawn.
The endeavor proved to be so popular and successful that they repeated the formula this year. This time around, they added a second session and raised their prices by about $40. They said the price bump is due to the cost of crafts. They’ve been able to take on more girls this year and run the camp more efficiently, said the girls. And they have bigger and better ideas this time around.
“It’s time consuming, but we love it,” said AG Sisters co-founder Madeline, 15.
Hosting an annual summer camp isn’t the only thing that keeps the savvy young businesswomen occupied; throughout the year, they host birthday and theme parties for the 5- to 11-year-old demographic, most of whom hail from Los Gatos and San Jose.
Over the past year, they’ve thrown more than 15 birthday parties and craft days, said Madeline. They charge a flat rate of $300 for parties and an additional $15 per girl. They auctioned off three birthday parties and donated the proceeds to Blossom Hill Elementary School, St. Mary’s School in Los Gatos and Fammatre Elementary School in San Jose. They said they plan on holding more auction parties this year.
Philanthropy is a big part of their business. Last year, they donated 30 percent of their proceeds to the Sunbeam Foundation, Make-A-Wish Foundation and Humane Society Silicon Valley. They’ll be giving to Sunbeam and the Humane Society again this year, along with the Ronald McDonald House. The latter was also a beneficiary of two brand new American Girl dolls last Christmas.
They credit their rise in popularity to word of mouth, which has traveled as far south as Paso Robles. One girl from the area came up this summer just for the AG camp, they said. The girls are planning to pay the region a visit next year and host parties there.
Their camp and parties aside, they maintain a YouTube channel where they demonstrate craft ideas for American Girl dolls. To date, they have nearly 700 subscribers, more than three times the number of subscribers they had last year.
“It’s kind of crazy; we didn’t think our YouTube channel would be what it is,” Madeline said.
Kate, 14, the creative one of the bunch, recently came up with an idea for their newest venture. Piggybacking on BirchBox–a New York City-based monthly subscription service that sends its subscribers a box of makeup and beauty related products–Kate wants to offer a similar service where instead of makeup, the girls would ship crafts to their customers. Their goal is to get it started and going within the next six months, said Kate.
“We were thinking, we only have this many weekends in a year; if the girls want to do a craft, how can we get it out to them?” Madeline said.
Nearly all of their time is spent developing and improving their business, but the girls see it as a labor of love more than a job.
“This isn’t a job for us,” said Gabrielle. “I’d do it whether we’d get paid or not.”
The best part is, the girls–who have known each other since the age of 2–have grown closer in the process as a result.
“Kate is one of my best friends, and I honestly feel like we’re sisters now,” said Madeline. “I absolutely love it.”
To learn more about the American Girl doll camps or parties, visitagsisters11.wix.com/agsummercamp.
Link:
Los Gatos, Saratoga: Girls and dolls focus of special summer camp
