In 2006, shortly after the conceptualization of Speak Life Clothing; Mia Thornton, found herself in a public school classroom as a substitute teacher in Atlanta, teaching algebra and statistics courses to high school students.  Thornton started in her position mid-year and noticed that many of her students had no motivation to learn and no interest in putting their best foot forward academically or behaviorally. The students had not had a consistent math teacher the entire year, they did not have their own books to take home to study or do homework; they were the students that the school’s administration had given up on… The students knew it and had taken it to heart. Thornton made the decision to stay with the students and teach them for the remainder of the year.

One morning, as Ms. Thornton was beginning to prepare to teach her classes, there was a knock at the door - a gentleman in a suit came in to shake her hand and introduced himself as a speaker for the school’s Career Day.  She had not received any information in regards to Career Day, but was very excited to have someone invited to the school to encourage her students.  As the man began to speak, an administrator walked into the classroom and pulled the gentleman aside – the speaker was in the wrong room and her students would not be able to participate in the activity.

Ms. Thornton was very disturbed that her students were excluded from Career Day and decided to gather together friends, family, and influential people from the community to encourage her students and other students that were excluded from participating in Career Day.  Less than a month later, the first Speak Life Day was born.

As of January 2009, The Speak Life Foundation has reached over 3,500 students from 12 different schools and non-profit organizations.