September 23, 2025
The Golden Hoops is her approach of reaffirming identification for readers, particularly Black youngsters
Jen Lee Hayes was lucky sufficient to have a form mom who instilled confidence in her at a really younger age. That confidence gave her a way of freedom and a perception system that nothing was off limits when it got here to her desires. She’s now sharing her mom’s particular system in her new youngsters’s ebook, The Golden Hoops, which she says readers of all ages can take pleasure in.
“As I bought older, I noticed that was not one thing that everyone had,” she informed BLACK ENTERPRISE. “It was a superpower that she helped me develop, which made me formidable and made me imagine in myself.”
Sadly, Hayes was solely 21 years previous when her mom died. Regardless of unimaginable loss as a younger grownup attempting to navigate the world, she walked into rooms nonetheless wearing that confidence her mom nurtured in her at a younger age, together with a pair of golden hoops. Golden hoops aren’t solely a signature and extension of her private fashion, they’re additionally a connection to her mom.
Certainly one of Hayes’s first core reminiscences was getting her first pair of golden hoops from her mom, Janey, when she was round 4 years previous.
Honoring her mom, Janey is the primary character in Hayes’s ebook who has some similarities to a younger Jen. Like Jen, Janey receives her first pair of golden hoops, that are a ceremony of passage. The golden hoops for the curious younger Janey signify belonging and self-expression. However then, she loses a hoop and embarks on a joyful journey of willpower that reminds readers they have already got the whole lot they should shine brightly on the earth.
A Ebook That Sends A Sturdy Message Following Chaos in 2020
The inspiration for a youngsters’s ebook got here to Hayes in 2020. It was an arduous time for the world as we navigated a pandemic. It was an much more difficult time for Black Individuals, who have been dying at a disproportionate charge from COVID-19 and navigating their self-worth after Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd have been killed throughout the first 5 months of the 12 months.
“I took [these deaths] very personally, as so many people did. I’m elevating three sons, and the whole lot hit me like a freight prepare,” Hayes recalled. “For me, I mentioned, ‘Wow. I must be part of including constructive messaging to bolster how necessary we’re, and reinforce that we’ve a goal to be right here.’”
The Golden Hoops is her approach of reaffirming identification for readers, particularly Black youngsters.
Via her analysis for the ebook, Hayes found that hoops maintain cultural significance for Black individuals. The custom of sporting hoop earrings originated round 2500 B.C.E. in Nubia, an African civilization situated in what’s now Sudan. Totally different members of tribes would put on totally different hoops to establish themselves as members of their respective tribes.
“I believed this was so fascinating as a result of hoops even have a contemporary utility for me,” she mentioned. “After I put on hoops in a board room or in areas the place I is perhaps the one one, hoops are a technique to say I’m not going to dim my mild, my private fashion, or who I’m.”
She added, “The identical hoops I put on on the road with my buddies are the identical hoops that I put on on the earth as a result of this is part of who I’m.”
Utilizing Gold Hoops As A Full Circle Second To Give Again
When she’s not a full-time mother, storyteller, and creator, Hayes leads advertising and content material at The Bump and redefines on a regular basis luxurious with the fashionable way of life firm she based, Bestow Assortment.
Whilst she wears so many hats, she doesn’t assume twice about prioritizing giving again. That’s why she is partnering with the Zora Home for The Golden Hoops Ebook Drive to ship 1000’s of copies of her debut youngsters’s ebook to younger readers, particularly in underserved communities.
All through the drive, she is inviting mother and father, educators, firms, nonprofits, and others to donate to the trigger. She can also be asking individuals who wish to get entangled to appoint a trainer, classroom, library, youth program, or bookstore to obtain an creator go to and copies of her debut youngsters’s ebook.
“I actually wish to create a motion and extra alternatives which are propelling literacy for younger audiences,” mentioned Hayes.
The ebook formally hit cabinets on Sept. 2. You possibly can order a replica on-line or discover it in a bookstore in your neighborhood.
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