Global group with Jacksonville origins is a 'life raft' for women building lives, careers

As a student at Florida State University, Chelsea DuDeVoire Careccia was one of the go-getter kind of women she calls "babes who hustle."

While pursuing a degree in editing, writing and media, she waited tables, worked at the FSU School of Music, was on the dance team and interned at several advertising and integrated marketing firms. After graduating in 2015, she moved to Jacksonville to work as a copywriter.

But was she still a babe who hustled?

"I had the thought of 'Is this it? Is this my career?' which is what inspired me to learn more about the career paths of others," she said.

So in 2016 Careccia started a "creative side project" — a digital publication called Babes Who Hustle. She interviewed women in her orbit — including artists, bartenders, doctors, teachers, lawyers, flight attendants, business owners and C-suite executives — and published features about their careers. She hoped their stories would "bring some clarity to my career path," she said.

But her side project exploded into far more than she envisioned.

Within a few months, she had a full-time publishing schedule on her hands. The group also hosted Jacksonville events, sold branded merchandise, partnered with local and national brands and received interview nominations from across the world.

"What I didn’t foresee was how far it would reach and how quickly," Careccia said. "There was such a hunger from our audience not just to learn about other women’s stories, but to actively support and uplift them. … It would be an understatement to say it far surpassed everything I thought it could and would be.

"It really was an exhilarating experience to create something from scratch and learn how to build it in real-time, with the help and support of so many people who also believed in its potential," she said.

'Hustle culture' unsustainable

Then the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything and led Careccia to re-evaluate how to better serve her community. By 2021, she realized she and they had "outgrown Babes Who Hustle."

"The next best step for us was to reimagine who we were as a brand — visually, but also content-wise and programming-wise," she said. "Our audience had naturally shifted from entry-level to more mid- and senior-level readers … I wanted our brand to better reflect who we’d come to be."

Six years after it was born, Babes Who Hustle has grown up — into Each is Every, founded in February. The name was inspired by the Babes Who Hustle mission statement: 'Each woman’s progress is every woman's progress.'

Each is Every is a "global career membership program," as well as an online publication and social media platform, Careccia said.

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"Creating long-lasting connections, sharing knowledge, evolving our skills and celebrating each other are keys to navigating the workplace," she said. "We also know that 'hustle culture' isn’t sustainable, burnout is incredibly real and … supporting one another through community and shared resources only makes us better."

Women supporting women is critical, said Natalie DeYoung, vice president of PR & Communications at Wingard, a Jacksonville marketing and advertising agency, and an Each is Every member.

"There are still too many industries and career paths where women are underrepresented in leadership positions. Connection is critical to our mental health, as well as the overall stability of our social systems," she said. "As the "Barbie" movie so masterfully demonstrated this summer, being a woman comes with an often contradictory and overwhelming set of societal expectations — and we all deserve to be seen and appreciated for who we are, not just who we think we need to be for others."

Each is Every membership is open to all women and nonbinary people. They pay $10 a month or $100 a year for access to a Slack network, which is a chat-based messaging app, as well as monthly virtual master classes led by industry experts, newsletters and events, among other exclusive things.

The Slack network has about 40 industry- and interest-specific channels where members share their "weekly wins," job searches or hiring opportunities and give each other advice and support. They also can communicate privately through direct messages.

"If we’ve collectively learned anything over the past few years, it’s that community is crucial — and for women and nonbinary folks, it’s paramount," Careccia said.

Career, life advice from all over the world

When Careccia started Babes Who Hustle, Brittany Norris was her roommate and was involved from the beginning. That involvement led to new friendships and participation in all sorts of events, from workshops to Scotch tastings to parties, said Norris, now director of intergovernmental affairs in the Jacksonville Mayor's Office.

"These women have been a valuable source of support throughout different chapters of my life," Norris said. "There's always someone with an answer or with a ready ear. The wisdom gained from sharing each other's experiences is priceless."

Friendship is "fundamental to human existence," she said, and particularly critical for women.

"I can't fathom an arena in life where support and community don't matter," she said. "Most of the world is built for and by a different gender. We need every ally we can make to create an equitable future that benefits more than one type of person."

Ina Mezini, strategic initiatives coordinator for the Downtown Investment Authority, discovered Babes Who Hustle in 2018. "Reading other women’s stories helped guide my own," she said.

A few months in, she became an intern for the group and later joined the staff. She's now on the advisory board and devouring the "invaluable" master classes and career-focused Slack channels, she said.

"I can directly connect with women in group settings and one-on-one to ask questions, share knowledge, make connections and more — the genuine support from the members is unmatched," she said. "Direct access to women who are thriving in their fields is a huge asset and one that I haven’t found anywhere else."

She has also learned about work-life balance — "what a healthy life and career look like and don’t look like," she said — from women who figured it out. Also, they have helped guide her through job changes, salary negotiations, managing large projects and working "with and for different personalities," she said.

Mezini has met "so many kickass women," some of whom have become close friends, and expanded her network far beyond Jacksonville. She gets "thoughtful responses" every time she posts a question on a Slack channel, she said.

"When women support one another, it creates an incredible ripple effect that impacts generations," she said. "There’s room for everyone to shine and when we … lend a hand to the woman next to us, it has the potential to change her life and it increases the likelihood that she will do the same for other women."

"It opens the doors for so many girls everywhere to see themselves pursuing their dream career, owning their own business and leading from that corner office," Mezini said.

DeYoung followed Babes Who Hustle for several years and recently joined Each is Every. As a group member this year, she has shared "experiences in a format that is exceptionally supportive and where every member seems to genuinely see each others' successes as their own," she said. "It's refreshing."

She has presented her own master class — "An Introvert's Guide to Getting Media Coverage" — and met other Jacksonville-based members. And she has reconnected "with peers and acquaintances in a format that feels more intimate than social media," she said. "While social media can often feel like a highlight reel, Each is Every brings people together through all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, professional life and what it means to be a woman navigating her way in the world."

"I wish a platform like this existed when I was just starting out," she said.

'This community has served as a life raft'

Babes Who Hustle published 489 interviews and 300 other articles by 42 contributing writers and held 28 in-person events, 24 book club meetings and about 383,000 website sessions. It had about 33,000 social media followers, about 1,000 Shopify customers. Global readership totaled about 415,000, including 60,000 in Jacksonville alone.

"What these numbers don’t illustrate are all of the collective, magical moments in-between: folks mentoring and hiring one another through our network, massive career changes with the help of our community, lifelong friendships being forged as a result of our in-person events," Careccia wrote in her Saying Goodbye to ‘Babes Who Hustle’ column. "This community has carried us all further than our ‘careers’ ever will. For many, it served as a life raft … amid the constant cycle of 'pivot' we all continue to cartwheel through."

Since founding Babes Who Hustle, Bradenton-native Careccia has gotten married and moved across the country to Denver, where she lives with husband Matt and dogs Curry and Coop. She manages communications and social media strategy for a Jacksonville-based commercial real estate company, Regency Centers.

"So many of my favorite people are folks I’ve met through Babes Who Hustle in one way or another," she said. "It opened so many doors for so many people in so many ways. I’ll never, ever get over it."

But Each is Every is the future. Careccia declined to say how many members it has so far, but the group's overall readership, social media followers and members combined total about 300,000. About 35% of members are in Jacksonville, she said.

"While creating and managing our platforms is an absolute honor — and a responsibility that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully articulate my gratitude for — it’s important to note that our members, readers, followers and supporters are what truly keep it alive," she said.

bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4109

EACH IS EVERY

To join or get more information, go to eachisevery.com. The articles produced for Babes Who Hustle remain on its website, babeswhohustle.com, but no new content is being added.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Women support women in global group Each is Every from Jacksonville