Seton athlete starts education charity
Isabella “Bella” DiGiovanni is a model student-athlete who has everything an 18-year old high school student-student athlete would want.
She’s played in the AIA’s 4A conference state championship game for Chandler Seton Catholic in all four of her high school years, and won three including, the Sentinels’ repeat title on March 20.
She is committed to play for League school Dartmouth next fall.
But her greatest challenge involves her work to help women facing poverty in developing nations.
The DiGiovanni family has traveled to Eastern Europe and Asia, including a stop in New Delhi, India. Isabella counted her blessings having an upper middle class status in America compared to the relative poverty she saw in India.
“What I saw in India when I went, with all that poverty, pollution and unsanitary conditions that they live in there is just miles away from what we experience here in America,” DiGiovanni said. “The women who work there work in awful conditions and they don’t really get any further opportunities besides that manual labor.”
To DiGiovanni, witnessing those hardships pushed her to help make a change.
She partnered with her best friend and Phoenix Brophy Prep senior Connor Nannen to launch a tote bag company Sand Custom Designs.
The brand’s mission is to sell imported cotton canvas tote bags and donate a portion of the proceeds from to schools in India to support young females’ education costs.
It was a natural progression in the lifelong bond between DiGiovanni and Nannen. They grew up together in north Scottsdale and have known each other since the first grade. They both have passions for business and philanthropy.
“(Connor and I) love just hearing stuff from my parents about business. We’ve always have been so interested in it,” DiGiovanni said. “When I knew that I wanted to start some sort of business, he was the first person that popped into my mind to do it with me because he has the same goals same passions.”
Her coach at Seton Catholic High School in Chandler isn’t surprised by Isabella’s effort.
“We are all incredibly proud of Bella
Ivy
as she demonstrates vision and selflessness through her efforts to help others and give back to society,” Seton Catholic girls basketball head coach Karen Self told The Republic in a text message.
DiGiovanni was raised in the business world by her father Paul DiGiovanni, who is the president of Christian-focused product marketing company CBC Group in Phoenix. Her mother, Patricia DiGiovanni, helps create the tote bags for Isabella’s company in the attic of DiGiovanni family’s home. Patricia sells her own tote bags through a separate company, Santa Barbara Design Studio, which is held by CBC.
The Sand Custom Designs bags have specialized words, phrases and various cities such as “SAND,” “EMPOWER” and “NEW YORK” printed on them, similar the Santa Barbara Design Studio bags.
“We’ve been lucky,’ Nannen said. “We both have gone through Catholic schools and I think we both had figures in our lives who taught us that giving back to the community and do what you can to help others makes a big difference. Small things can go a long way.”
Isabella and Nannen have a first-year goal of raising $5,000, which will send five women through a two-year nursing program. She claims they are already a third of the way towards that benchmark, and said that $1,000 American dollars — $72,000 rupees in Indian currency — can finance a woman’s nursing program tuition costs.
“There is a really bad shortage of doctors and nurses in India,” Isabella DiGiovanni said. “They have to fill those positions with people who don’t really know really know what they’re doing. And that’s just causing harm for the whole country. We want women who don’t opportunities.”
Isabella plans to major in business management in college. She and Nannen will continue running Sand Bag Custom Designs during their respective studies at Dartmouth and Arizona State’s Barrett Honors College, where he will study business as well.
She is putting the Christian edict of hospitality forward first to help better lives in third world countries, decreasing the wage gap between man and women in American and abroad.
“Clearly, the Christian thing to do is help others when we can, and empowering women is a big movement in this day and age,” Isabella said. “I feel really passionate about women being given further opportunities. I would encourage a lot of women, especially our age, to start young and fully understand that if we help each other to end gender inequality, that would be a huge benefit to our world. Not everything is how it is in America.” to empower these really have further