Philadelphia transplant Samantha Mathews takes pride in having built a nonprofit from the ground up that prioritizes community, growth and freedom. The mom of two grew up in Canada, and finds her social enterprise model of helping women who’ve experienced intimate partner violence and trauma heal both emotionally and financially is as needed here as it is anywhere.

“Philly is everything you could want,” she says of her adopted city. “I want to see it flourish. I really want to see this city thrive, and there’s just such a vast need for services.”

Mathews is the founder and CEO of the Andrée Collective, an organization centered on the idea that “freedom can come through celebration.” The nonprofit serves survivors of intimate partner violence and trauma in two ways: therapy, and employment in the wedding and events industry.

​​[Editor’s note: Samantha Matthews is a nominee for The Philadelphia Citizen’s “Rad Nonprofit Leader of the Year.” On July 30, 2025, The Citizen will present the Rad Awards, celebrating dozens of outstanding Philadelphia women and their allies. Find out more information, and get your tickets.]

Filling a need

Born and raised in Northwest Canada to a mother who was a survivor of domestic violence, Mathews initially became a therapist for women who’d experienced trauma. But she soon began to realize how many barriers there are for these women to start over. Therapy is just a first step.

She had been dreaming of starting Andrée Collective for years. Through graduate school, getting her licensing hours, and raising her young kids, Mathews thought about how to create the most impactful organization to support this population she was trying to reach.

Work eventually brought Mathews to North Carolina, where she came across a social enterprise model — an organization that provided both therapy and work opportunities to vulnerable populations. A Raleigh, NC restaurant solely employs women experiencing homelessness. On a volunteer trip to Thailand, Mathews saw it again; this time, it was an organization that helped women leave red light districts through jewelry making.

Mathews liked the concept, but wanted to put a new spin on things. “It’s really hard in America to make a working wage off of those fields, especially since women are often starting over [when they’re] moms. They’re not only supporting themselves but supporting their families,” she says.

Something that does make a ton of money in America? The wedding industry.

Turning women into event planners

In 2024, the wedding service market was valued at almost $65 billion. An average wedding can cost tens of thousands of dollars. It’s a wildly lucrative industry but, Mathews says, “it’s untapped when it comes to being utilized for good.”

She created her nonprofit in 2021, launched in fall 2022 and has since funded it through a combination of donations, grants (such as a recent one from the PLUS Foundation), and 100 percent of the profits from their events. The Andrée Collection’s event packages start at $1,850. (In the U.S., wedding planning companies typically make an 18 percent profit from their fee.)

For the women that Andrée Collective serves, working in the wedding planning sector is useful from a career standpoint. It’s a low barrier to entry (you don’t need a certain level of education or experience), and provides job skills — customer service, project management, PowerPoint — that are transferrable to many careers. Andrée’s career development curriculum can be individualized, given that women are coming from different backgrounds.

“It truly changed every aspect of her life. And in that moment she felt that. And I felt that.” — Samantha Matthews, Andrée Collective

Andrée pays $16 an hour plus an event stipend of $150 to $250 when working onsite — a stepping stone to what they’ll earn when landing an eventual full-time job.

“Our expectation is not that everyone is going to leave and work in the wedding industry,” Mathews says, citing women who left her program and went on to work in medical offices, administrative jobs, or Philadelphia’s Mural Arts. “We just want to cultivate whatever their goals are.”

A strong Philly ecosystem

Andrée runs listings on websites like Psychology Today for women who might not know where to turn for help and can’t afford therapy. Andrée Program Manager Krista Tyson has also been strategic about connecting with Philadelphia organizations that work with female survivors: Lutheran Settlement House, Women Against Abuse, and the Salvation Army’s New Day to Stop Human Trafficking, to name a few.

Local partnerships work both ways, providing, via a case manager, access to childcare, transportation, and housing help.

Mathews says she and her team of six other women, who are a mix of therapists and event planners, fill in the gaps in service for the women who are at the Now what? stage. Andrée is not typically the first call for women coming out of an abusive situation, but they are there for women who are ready to start crafting a new life for themselves, so that they don’t have to remain financially dependent upon their abusers.

More than passing through

All Andrée Collective programs last at least 12 weeks. “We don’t do any one-time, we-see-you-and-then-count-you-as-a-number service,” Mathews says. Women have the option to enroll in pay-what-you-can group counseling programs first. Most women are only able to pay $1 a session, when the cost is actually $30. That affordability gap begat Party 29, Andrée Collective’s primary fundraising program, where a $29 donation covers the rest of the payment that so many are unable to make.

These group counseling programs feed into the heart of the nonprofit: community. “When you come out of a coercive control situation, you have been isolated,” Mathews says. “You can only go so far healing alone from something that caused isolation.”

There’s also a free financial literacy program: 12 weeks of seminars in partnership with W!SE’s MoneyWise curriculum (specially designed for survivors of domestic violence) that ends with a nationally standardized certificate-granting assessment in personal finance. And then there’s the apprenticeship program where for 9 months women work to plan and execute events and weddings. Apprentices work alongside wedding professionals in all aspects of the logistics process, including selecting vendors, negotiating contracts and budgets, and day-of event set-up and coordination.

Couples getting married can choose from multiple packages, including 60-Day planning (handling all vendors and coordination 60 days out), partial planning, or day-of coordination — most couples choose to add-on lavish Andrée Collective floral designs to “make beauty empowering.” Weddings with the nonprofit have happened all over the Greater Philadelphia area, in places varying from the Loews Hotel to the Pen Ryn Mansion in Bensalem.

“I really want to see this city thrive, and there’s just such a vast need for services.” — Samantha Matthews

Last year, the Andrée Collective served 25 women with over 100 hours of therapy sessions, and worked nine weddings, with an apprentice assisting at every one. The team hopes that as the organization grows, particularly in terms of funding, they will eventually be able to serve many more of the hundreds of women experiencing domestic violence in our city.

Mathews says that a few months ago, she called a woman to offer her an apprenticeship. The woman was, at the time, living in a transitional home with other female survivors of domestic violence. When she got the offer, she started screaming with joy over the phone; Mathews could hear a group of women, who also lived in the home, standing behind the new apprentice cheering for their friend.

Because the apprenticeship offer wasn’t just a part-time job for her — it was also the pay stub that the woman needed to be able to move out of the home and get an apartment of her own. “It truly changed every aspect of her life,” Matthews says. “And in that moment she felt that. And I felt that.”

Mathews started screaming with excitement over the phone too.

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Visit this hotline website or call (800) 799-7233.

Correction: Pricing for an Andrée Collections events package starts at $1,850; florals are not included in packages; they cost extra. Matthews created the company in 2021 and launched in 2022. 

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