Dot Products

In 2011, Hallie Darphin took a semester off of college to work at a children's home and school in Uganda, Africa. It was there that she met a sixth grader named Disan, a day student at the school. He lived with his family in the local village and walked to the school each day. Before coming to their school, Disan had been in and out of many local schools, his parents unable to pay for his education consistently. Disan had recently begun attending the school where Hallie worked, which provided free education to needy students in the community. He was in sixth grade but struggled with basic multiplication facts because of his inconsistent education. Hallie and Disan studied sixth grade math together each day, and she watched him grow in his knowledge and confidence. She came back to America determined to make a difference in the lives of students similar to the ones she worked with in Uganda, and Dot was born. The company was first developed in an Entrepreneurship class at Mississippi College, where it won a start-up competition. That gave Hallie—a psychology major—the confidence to make this Dot dream into reality. Over the next year, she worked to further develop the company, finding manufacturers, product, and the first students to support. Dot Products launched in June of 2014 with students in Matamoros, Mexico and Lac Verct, Congo. In the winter of 2014, we added a partner in Tanzania. We currently sell binders, newspaper pencil sets, colored pencils, rulers, and journals, and every product funds half a day of school for the students we support. Since launching, we have provided 16 full-year scholarships to students with our Global Partners. In the Spring of 2015, we added Custom Notebooks to our product line, allowing organizations to use their print and promotional materials to do good. Each Custom Notebook funds a quarter of a day of school for our Global Partners.