The summer before his junior year, Covenant College alumnus Matt Schroeder ’17 started an e-commerce apparel business out of his garage called Shelly Cove. The company sells a variety of clothing items and accessories, but it is also devoted to giving back to the community in a variety of ways.
Since the beginning of his freshman year at Covenant, Schroeder has been interested in philanthropy, yet his skills are more centered around business and entrepreneurship, so in college he began to look for a way to combine the two. Inspired by companies like Toms or Bombas, which devote significant portions of their profits to charity work, Schroeder began to think of a mission he would want to be involved in and support through a business.
“I was trying to think of a mission that was close to something that I grew up with, and I visited the beach a lot growing up,” Schroeder said, “My family visited a sea turtle hospital, and so we knew the owners of the hospital and they do fantastic work… In general, it just seemed like a perfect fit. It was something that I really cared about, you know, not just sea turtles in general but also this particular nonprofit.”
That organization is the Karen Beasley Turtle Hospital in North Carolina. Once Schroeder had a clear mission, he designed some t-shirts, which sold well, and his company began to grow.
When he came back to Covenant to begin his junior year, Schroeder switched his major from engineering to economics and devoted time to both academics and his new business. “That was definitely tough,” he said, “but it helped me to learn time management really well, which was a great skill to have.” Schroeder said he stayed as busy as possible, using every opportunity he had to work on the business while his parents managed the small warehouse back in North Carolina.
After graduating, Schroeder was hired to work at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), but he continued to invest more time and money into Shelly Cove. The company began hiring a few people, many of whom were Covenant graduates, and the new staffers were able to propel the business even further.
By February 2019, Schroeder was able to leave his job at the TVA and focus full-time on his company. Now based in Northshore, Shelly Cove has 12 employees, eight of which are Covenant graduates.
Since Shelly Cove began through a partnership with the Karen Beasley Turtle Hospital, its primary outreach focus is with this organization. The organization holds itself to donating at least 10% of profits to the turtle hospital every year, though sometimes it has been significantly more than 10%. In the past six years, Shelly Cove has been able to donate over $200,000 to this turtle hospital.
Image is from ShellyCove.com
Shelly Cove has also designed a way for customers to interact with the turtle hospital. Every order includes a special serial number that correlates to a turtle currently being rehabilitated at the Karen Beasley Turtle Hospital. Customers can log in to the Shelly Cove website with the number and are then assigned a turtle whose story they can read and follow.
“It's just a way for our customers to feel more connected to what we're doing, rather than just this intangible, ‘hey we're donating to this nonprofit’... You get to see what's happening, which people really liked,” said Schroeder.
In addition to helping the turtles, Shelly Cove has used its resources to help in a variety of other ways, both in the Chattanooga community and around the world. During the Australian wildfires in 2020, the company designed t-shirts and donated 100% of the profit to the Australian Red Cross. “In about a month we were able to raise $30,000 for the Australian Red Cross, which is really cool. Our community really rallied behind that,” Schroeder remembered.
Earlier this year, when Texas was struck by multiple storms, Shelly Cove had a donation day where 100% of the profits were donated to a sea turtle rehabilitation center in Texas. They raised $15,000 that day. Shelly Cove also partners with a clean water initiative through water.org and has raised money through selling their eco-friendly products, like metal straws and reusable tote bags—enough money to provide clean water to 17,000 people for a year.
Locally, Shelly Cove donates to the Chattanooga Food Bank and has company volunteer days once a quarter. “The folks on our team are super passionate about all this stuff too. Every single person here is super passionate about trying to give back where we can. They're the ones that come up with these ideas, and we're able to strategically use the funds that we have to give back where we can,” Schroeder said.
Schroeder feels that this aspect of the company is very important, and he aims to be transparent with customers about the commitments to giving back. “Every single donation we do, we make public so that [people] could tell if we're starting to fall off and not do it as much.”
For Schroeder this work is grounded in his faith. “As Christians, we're supposed to give back to those who are less fortunate than us, whether it's people, whether it's creatures in need, whatever that may be. We're supposed to protect our community and protect the planet, and I just see a big importance in that.”
Schroeder’s faith has been both strengthened and tested by his endeavor, but he highly encourages anyone considering taking a business risk like this to do so, even while they’re still in school, “I would 100% say just go for it. There's no better time to do it than literally right this second. A lot of my ideas that I started, I failed. I've probably tried to start, even after Shelly Cove, like 10 businesses that have failed. That is tough to, you know, rebound from something that you put a lot of work into and it doesn't pan out, but you seriously just have to keep on trying it, and especially as a college student. You're busy, but also, outside of yourself you don't really have responsibility, you don't have a family to take care of for the most part, but, why not just go for it?”
If you are interested in more about Shelly Cove and the work they are doing, you can visit their website at shellycove.com.