Founder Story
You can't take what people carry inside them.
I come from Kinloch, Missouri — the first self-governing Black city in Missouri. My family was there for four generations. My great-grandmother raised 13 children there. My mother had me at 15 and became the neighborhood hairdresser — the first entrepreneur I ever knew, though neither of us called it that.
I grew up during the crack era. Watched family members fall victim to it. Was moved away by a grandmother who wanted better for us. Kinloch was later bought by the airport. The residents were pushed out. The town was left abandoned.
But you can't take what people carry inside them. I took the grit, the love, and the refusal to quit — and I built The Sava Group. Ten years. 1,000+ women served directly. A free community of 2,000+ women. A wife. A mother of five — including twins who are the reason I started this business in the first place.
I built Freedom Unleashed because I kept watching women with everything it takes get locked out by the one thing they didn't have — access. The Kinloch Scholarship is my way of making sure that door stays open.
— Shequana Hughes, Founder