Take a minute to conjure up the must-have kicks from your childhood days. Were they the classic canvas Chuck Taylors—blisters and all? Perhaps it was the Reebok Pump sneaker that topped your early 1990s wish list. Or maybe you appreciated the chic vintage vibe of slip-on Vans or suede Pumas. Whatever your go-to sneakers were, and whatever they added to your athletic or style game, chances are they couldn’t compete with the transformative possibilities of Simeon Bleeker’s red high-tops.
Simeon is the brainchild of three Lehigh Valley-based best buddies turned business partners: Paul Walsh, Ronnie Nase and Susie Sewell, who collectively make up Soul Perspective LLC, a company with a mission of creating products that promote tolerance and understanding.
Their first endeavor is a children’s book: Simeon Bleeker’s Magical Sneakers. At the time of conversation with Lehigh Valley Style in late summer, they were busy managing a Kickstarter fundraising campaign while finalizing the book’s layout ahead of an expected November 30 release date. “It’s been a mad dash,” says Walsh of the journey to transform Simeon from an abstract idea into a children’s book character whom they hope will resonate with his young audience.
But let’s rewind to pre-pandemic times in early 2019. Authoring a children’s book wasn’t on anyone’s to-do list. Walsh had a full plate as the artistic director of literary arts at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts, Sewell was staying busy juggling freelance graphic design work with her job as a bartender at Zest in Bethlehem and Nase, the self-described “man of a million jobs,” was working as a regional director for peer support services provider Peerstar LLC. In March of that year, Walsh and Nase had a casual conversation about a rough idea Nase was kicking around for a children’s story; it involved a boy who could gain insight into different experiences and livelihoods by slipping on a special pair of sneakers. “That was it, and then we didn’t talk about it for a year,” says Walsh.
But then in March of this year, Walsh was working with local writer, editor and publisher Jennifer Bright, founder and CEO of Bright Communications LLC and Momosa Publishing LLC, on a workshop for his school. He brought up the concept for the book, and Bright was all in. Suddenly Simeon, as their central character would come to be named (the Hebrew meaning translates to “listener”), was off the back burner. But talking about a children’s book and making that book a reality are two very different things. “It was definitely overwhelming at the start,” says Nase. Luckily Walsh did have some experience in this world. He self-published a novel, Lemonade, via Barnes & Noble last year. And Nase, who is one of seven children (“I’ve pretty much been raising kids my entire life,” he says with a laugh), had spent many years working with kids in a variety of capacities. So, wordsmith? Check. Kid expert? Check. “The only problem now is, neither one of us draws,” Walsh says.
Enter illustrator Sewell, who studied fine arts and graphic design at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and at Northampton Community College, respectively. While Walsh and Nase hammered out the storyline, she started coming up with some sketches to bring Simeon to life. “It was exactly what Ronnie and I were thinking in our heads,” says Walsh. The style they agreed upon favors characters with heads that are a bit larger than life, and backgrounds that are intentionally a little blurred. “We really wanted to focus on the emotions of the faces,” Sewell explains.
And it’s those emotions, after all, that are at the heart of five-year-old Simeon’s adventures. His magical sneakers allow him to spend some time in someone else’s shoes; in his case, it’s in the shoes of another child whose experiences are unfamiliar to him. In this first offering, Simeon gets to know Madelyn, a kindergarten classmate who is autistic. Nase says she’s based on a girl he met while working in an autism support unit in the East Penn School District. “It was the first name that came to mind,” he says. “I remember thinking how special she was.”
The goal of distilling the enduring idiom of walking a mile in someone else’s shoes for the kindergarten set is to teach tolerance and empathy, two values that are of paramount importance to all three team members. For Walsh, it’s something that speaks to him as an educator and as the father of a toddler son.
“I don’t think parents or teachers can ever have enough resources to show kids how to be good people,” he says. Nase sees the book as an important gateway to essential discussions about issues that can divide us if they’re not addressed early and often. “We need to look at things like racism, sexism, discrimination against a group of any kind,” he explains. And Sewell adds that it’s not just children who need to be reminded of these lessons. “We hope the parents just as much as the kids find value in it,” she says.
They hope to send Simeon on many more journeys with his magical sneakers. It’s possible that down the road he might graduate to higher grade levels and to the more advanced social challenges that come with them. “What we’re doing is to use this as a tool to basically have a character who is introduced to a generation and grows up with them so that from a young age they are learning what it means to have empathy,” Nase says. “It’s really just the beginning,” adds Walsh. “I really see this book series as having the potential to impact kids in such a positive and impactful way.”
It’s no secret that best friends don’t always make the best business partners, but the Soul Collective three say their professional collaboration has been a positive experience so far. Walsh and Sewell have known each other since middle school, starting when Walsh moved onto Sewell’s street in Bethlehem. Nase came into the fold a few years later when he was Walsh’s roommate at Kutztown University. “The three of us have a really good rapport and we consider each other family,” Sewell says. That’s not to say the process hasn’t had its challenges, particularly when it comes to the non-creative demands of nurturing a fledgling company. “We really quickly had to become business people, when we’re not business people,” Walsh says. Cracks Sewell: “The most unlikely trio to start a business, started a business.” They make it work, they say, by making sure their friendship stays at the forefront. “We can meet and we can talk about business, but if something else is going on, we can talk about that, too,” says Nase. “It’s not something we have to sweep under the rug. Being friends makes the business part better because we all care about each other.”
Bringing Simeon to life has also been uniquely energizing for the team for a myriad of reasons. Nase says it’s reminded him of his affinity for working with children: “It’s definitely where my passion lies.” Sewell says she, too, relished the opportunity to rekindle her creative side. “It was nice to take a second and get back to what I love doing.” And Walsh says the book has helped him up his game professionally. “I’ve always been a writer, a reader, a teacher,” he says, “but this gave me the opportunity to teach on a whole different level.”
The creative process of putting the book together also proved to be a bright spot for the team during a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was sparking uneasiness and anxiety around the globe, and exacerbating long-simmering socioeconomic inequalities. “It created a really joyful experience for us in the middle of March, which was something we were not expecting,” Walsh says. And now they hope Simeon can do the same for anyone who tags along as he laces up those magical sneakers.
