Tee For Two

While barbies are plastic and aloof, Little Souls dolls are whimsical, lovable and, for many, even life-altering. They certainly were for doll maker Gretchen Wilson, who started sewing dolls for her three children because she was too poor to buy them. The dolls caught the eye of a children's retailer, who ordered some for her store.

Twenty-five years later, Wilson, 50, and partner Colleen Charleston, 43, are selling some 25,000 Little Souls dolls each year-and changing lives across the globe. Their collaborations with women worldwide have not only resulted in the Bobita line of dolls from Romania and Kumasi Kids from Ghana but have also taught women in those countries income-earning skills and even provided funds for needy children.

Wilson and Charleston also provide doll-making demonstrations at schools and shelters in the United States, where they find their dolls are often a window to the soul. At a workshop for crack-addicted women, "the two women who were the most visibly damaged made the most precious little dolls," says Wilson. "I was so moved because I realized inside everyone there's a sense of hope, an idea of beauty."

The Ardmore, Pennsylvania, entrepreneurs never expected their dolls would have as profound an effect on those who make them as on those who buy them. "We didn't plan the company this way," says Wilson. "I guess it's just kind of who we are."

This article was originally published in the July 1996 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: Tee For Two.