Interview: Leanne Seawright by Christoph     Celebrities attract many people. Most musicians and movie stars have a certain group of people who are their so-called "base": fans. Fans have different ways to show their obsession for their favorite celebrity. Or should we call it loyalty? Some of these people travel around the world only to get a glimpse of their favorite star. Others are waiting hours in the streets in the hope of an autograph. But they wouldn’t be fans if the did not find a new creative way to show their devotion. For example, take the fans of award-winning actress Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie is known as U.N. goodwill ambassador and author of the book Notes from My Travels – a diary of her experiences as goodwill ambassador. Some of her fans got inspired by her work and started an extraordinary project - I am talking about people on SoulieJolie.com. Souliejolie.com is the most popular Angelina Jolie fan site on the Web. Its webmasters and members of the board try to gather enough money to build a school in Cambodia. Surprised? We talked with Leanne Seawright webmistress of SoulieJolie.com: V: What is the Souliejolie Project? And what are your goals? Leanne Seawright: The SoulieJolie Project is a group of people helping to raise money for the CVD (Cambodian Vision in Development), our goal is to raise 25000 USD to pass onto the CVD so they can build a school in Cambodia for under privileged children. V: Who came up with this unique idea? LS: The idea came about between my SoulieJolie partner, Adam and myself. V: How many people are involved in this project and who are they? LS: There are a few people involved, myself, Adam and Isabelle from SoulieJolie, some other staff members are also helping out with different tasks, then there’s the people from the CVD also involved. V: How did you start this challenge? LS: I guess it started with an idea we got when we heard what the CVD were all about, with the member database on the SoulieJolie website, we thought that we could get it started pretty quickly and get a lot of feedback and help from the users. We started off by building the SoulieJolie site, ordering wristbands and setting them up to be sold worldwide. V: Was it difficult to organize the project and find people to cooperate with? LS: Oh not at all, we had a lot of people asking to help and willing to donate. V: What was the overall response and feedback so far? LS: The response has been fantastic actually, almost everyone who has donated or bought a wristband has left very positive feedback. V: Do you think you have crossed the line between fans and something else? I mean, trying to get enough money to build a school in Cambodia is not something similar to asking for an autograph. LS: Well we thought that the fans of Angelina would be more willing to give and help those in need as they would like to follow in Angelina’s footsteps so to speak, so we thought we’d ask and see what they thought of the idea and whether it would be something they’d be interested in or not. V: Can you tell us anything about your sponsors and their involvement? LS: We don’t have any sponsors per say, but we do have some help from a recording artist by the name of Raz. He’s doing a benefit concert later this year in New York and he’s helping raise funds for the SoulieJolie Project through the concert, as well as some other charity funds. For more information on Raz, have a look at his site: www.razme.com V: How can I be sure that my money goes to the project and not in your pockets? LS: I guess I can’t give you any real proof of that, however, all money received has been setup in a specific PayPal account (all donations and wristband payments), once all the money is in there, it will be forwarded directly to the CVD’s PayPal account. It’s very expensive to setup an international NPO which is why we haven’t done so, we have set this up out of our own pockets and are trying to run this as best as we can. The PayPal account can be supervised by the CVD if they so wish. The only money, which has been taken out of the account, was to cover the postage costs for the wristbands. V: One of your features is an “auction room” but I couldn’t find anything for sale. Have you dismissed the idea?  LS: No, we haven’t dismissed the idea, when we changed servers, the auction program went down, we are currently looking into re-skinning it and also re-installing it onto the server. V: Have you set yourself a time limit for the realization of your aims? LS: There’s no time limit, we’re hoping to get this done as soon as we can, the more we put into it, hopefully the more we’ll get out of it and the sooner we can get a school built! V: How would you describe yourself? As devoted fans with an unusual hobby or would you define yourself as some sort of NGO? Are you actually an approved non-profit 501(c)(3) organization? LS: I’m not entirely sure whether I fit into either of those categories! I’m a fan of Angelina for sure, but not overly crazed. I keep the site up and running not for my own interest in her, but rather to keep the thousands of members happy and to keep them informed. The SJ Project is more so to try and do something good in this world and hopefully if we can all band together we’ll be able to make a small change somewhere in the world. V: Do you know any other celebrity fans or fan sites with a similar mission or project? LS: I’m sure there are a lot out there, but I don’t generally go searching for other websites to keep up with the trend so to speak, I do what I think is best for my site and for the people involved. V: Angelina Jolie’s reputation and motivation as do-gooder has raised some doubts and critics since her union with Brad Pitt. People see their charities simply as PR manipulation. What do you think about this new development? LS: People are entitled to think what they want about her, she’s been doing UN work for a long time before her and Brad got together. SJ Project and the CVD have nothing to do with Angelina, but rather trying to get people to help change a child’s life. V: What about Angelina Jolie? Does she know about this project? LS: I haven’t spoken to her, but I think she may know about it, or at least some of her staff members do. I’m not doing this to gain any acknowledgement from her or her staff. V: Are there any plans for the future? LS: No real plans as yet, hopefully if we can get one school up, we’ll try for more. Hopefully one day we can turn into an NPO and get more people involved and more schools built in Cambodia and around the world.

 

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