Blessed. Beautiful. Brilliant.

Mia Thornton ’03 has begun a proud and clear-voiced chorus.

Gorgeous.

Her mission: to create positive images to counteract the relentless stream of media offerings heavy on the negative, the sarcastic and the marginalizing.

Focused.

“I believe that words really do have power,” she says.

Driven.

After graduating from Pomona, Thornton spent two years working in finance in San Francisco. Feeling a void in her corporate lifestyle and motivated by a trip to South Africa, she sought something profoundly different.

She returned to her native Atlanta, dove into the classroom as a long-term substitute high school teacher and began giving shape to a dream. Speak Life, Thornton’s brainchild, is the name of a budding clothing line featuring T-shirts. The words also refer to a mantra of motivation—a personal philosophy Thornton has constructed from her belief that words and images can and should invigorate and enliven.

These days, Thornton’s schedule is busy with the myriad of tasks required to build an emerging one-woman business. Thornton has debuted her T-shirt collection at a Georgia fashion show, maintains a dialogue with members of the fashion industry to keep abreast of trends, works to place her products in clothing boutiques and coordinates with contractors who provide design work, public relations and counsel.

Unlike shirts that label their wearers as “Vixen” or offer acerbic phrases like “I hear you. I just don’t care,” Thornton’s messages are meant to speak life into the wearer: You are blessed. You are gorgeous. She offers a dozen T-shirts for young women, each featuring simple, positive messages, like “Focused” and “Driven.”

“I want it to be cool to be positive,” says Thornton. “You can be fashionable and beautiful and cute and still have on something that says something—something that’s going to encourage you and other people that look at you.”

By creating these messages, Thornton is echoing for others the support she received from her parents. “They always validated me, so I didn’t have to look to others to validate me,” she explains. The youngest of three children and the only daughter, Thornton enjoyed being cherished in a home in which she was affectionately dubbed “Pretty Girl.”

Moreover, she says she inherited a yen for entrepreneurship from her father, an attorney who developed his own practice and encouraged his children to innovate bold and creative career choices. “My parents are always very supportive of whatever I choose to do,” Thornton explains. That built-in cheering section has given her the confidence to listen to herself and follow through on her own ideas.

To further her goals on behalf of young people, Thornton this year organized a “Speak Life Day” at West Lake High School in Atlanta. Reaching about 300 students, the event included speakers from the community who came to serve as role models, reflecting on the courses of their lives and encouraging the students to believe in their abilities to meet lofty goals. Speakers included a local radio personality, a finance professional and a young doctoral student, among others. Another Atlanta event is planned for October, and Thornton hopes
eventually to expand the concept to other regions.Thornton is keenly aware of both the power and the interconnectedness of the media and popular culture, from movies to radio to fashion. She jokes: “I can’t act and I can’t sing, so this is my way of reaching people.”

Response to Thornton’s multi-pronged efforts has been largely positive. One male student gave Thornton a T-shirt of his own design emblazoned with “Classy Woman.” Thornton says she wears it often, just as she does her own shirts.

Think it, say it, and it becomes a reality. Often this has created young people with low self-esteem, seeking validation from risky choices and falling far short of their potential. Thornton hopes to stir the early ripples of a new wave, in which the power of what is “cool” is used for a great purpose—to create young men and women who believe in themselves, who think of the future and are buoyed by the lift of their own vast potential.

“I really do believe that you have what you say you have, and that words should be used to inspire,” Thornton asserts. “People should be doing more to encourage people, not bring them down.”