In the spring of 2017, Shari Overstreet and Mary Meisenbach were in Thailand, volunteering at the Elephant Nature Park, when an elephant there died. A park employee told Overstreet that if they’d had a certain piece of equipment, it potentially could have saved the animal.
Heartbroken, Overstreet asked him how much a machine like that would cost, assuming it was somewhere in the $100,000 range. When he told her it cost $2,000, she was shocked.
“I was taken aback,” Overstreet said. “Coming from Silicon Valley, there’s a lot of wealth and money, and I was like, ‘We can do something.’”
Overstreet and Meisenbach came back home to San Jose from their trip determined to help the elephants beyond their two-week volunteering trip. In 2018, they launched Time To Be Herd, a clothing company that donates 100 percent of its profits to two elephant conservation groups: Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Africa and Elephant Nature Park.
The company’s products feature a drawing of two elephants, one adult and one baby, and come in a range of styles, from sweatshirts to baseball caps to infant onesies. Many feature the number 352,271—the number of elephants remaining in 18 African countries, according to a 2016 census.
The products are printed in San Jose and sold on the company’s online shop, TimeToBeHerd.com. Overstreet and Meisenbach have also set up booths at local events, and they said it’s inspiring to see widespread the concern for elephants.
“We’ve gotten great responses,” Meisenbach said. “People cry at our booth because they’re so passionate about what we are.”
Overstreet said she’s always been an animal lover. By the time she was 13, she was already going door to door with a petition to stop the slaughter of harp seals. In 2011, she saw a TV special featuring Daphne Sheldrick, a renowned elephant conservationist, and Overstreet said it opened her eyes to the acute poaching crisis in Africa. She and her husband went on a safari to Africa to visit Sheldrick’s wildlife center.
“That trip was just life changing,” Overstreet said. “Seeing the elephants, especially those in the wild, was just incredible. And I knew I needed to do something to just help ensure their future.”
So Overstreet called Meisenbach. The two women have been friends for close to two decades, sharing a mutual love for animal welfare. Overstreet asked if Meisenbach wanted to go with her to Thailand, where the biggest threat to elephants isn’t poaching but habitat loss and the tourism industry. Meisenbach was immediately on board.
“I said, ‘Yes, absolutely,’” Meisenbach recalled. “This is what I need to do in my life. This is who I am.”
On the last night of their trip—after two weeks of feeding the elephants, cleaning up after them, and building a dam so the elephants would have deeper water to play in—the volunteers gathered to hear from the Elephant Nature Park’s founder, Lek Chailert. She implored the volunteers to be a voice for the elephants.
Overstreet said that’s precisely what Time To Be Herd aims to do. When she wears the company’s merchandise, she added, someone will almost always comment on it. She says it’s a good way to get people to think about elephants and raise awareness of their plight.
“They could be gone in the blink of an eye if we’re not made aware, and people just don’t know,” Overstreet said. “And I think if people know, they care, and they’ll want to do something to help. So we’re just trying to get out there and shed some light on this.”
