Summer Intern Bio: Mabelyn Jimenez-Sosa

Sami Jensen • July 23, 2019

This blog series offers a glimpse into reSET’s summer internship program in entrepreneurship. The series captures interns’ experiences, both with reSET’s curriculum and the startups that they are working alongside. Mabelyn Jimenez-Sosa is attending Tunxis Community College in Farmington, CT.

I am Mabelyn Jimenez-Sosa.  I graduated Tunxis Community College with my associates degree in Business Administration in December 2018. I will continue taking equivalent 4 year school courses at Tunxis before transferring to CCSU. 

I found out about reSET through my school’s business club. Managing Director Sarah Bodley came in to speak about reSET as the social enterprise it is and it got me interested. I was interested in business and especially the social responsibility part of it. I knew reSET would be perfect for me to expand my knowledge and experience in the business world and in philanthropy. I saw the internship as a great opportunity to take when Sarah mention that part of the internship was developing our own business ideas.  

The start up I’ve been working with is Alchemists Beauty. They have created a beauty tonic to consume daily. They just started their business and are currently pre-selling their beauty tonic on their website structure-beauty.com. The product helps rejuvenate and repair the skin from the inside out. Alchemists Beauty’s focus is to stop premature aging and to help you control the fate of your skin. 

I’m working on two projects with Alchemists Beauty. The first one is bringing Alchemists Beauty Tonic to social media for advertising & networking purposes. The second one is building business relationships in specific with Medispas and food stores to get them to sell their beauty tonic. Until now we have just been focusing on the social media project because of the amount of work it needs. 

I am working on a venture with fellow intern, Isabel Plant, that focuses on healthy makeup. I remember always wanting to play with makeup since I was little but my mom never let me because of how bad it was for the skin. I looked into popular brands and saw that there are many toxic ingredients that not only cause acne and wrinkles but are also carcinogenic! At the same time I’d heard about the “miracles of hemp” and the growing industry. I learned that hemp is really good for the skin and decided to start a business of natural makeup that contains hemp. Our goal is to bring healthy confidence with natural ingredients to people while being very inclusive in race, gender, and age. The biggest takeaways from working on our venture is the amount of things we have to include for our start-up budget and getting specific in our company since we like to think so big. It was easy for us to think of where we want to take the company but to get it started was more complicated than I thought. 

reSET is great with resources! Each company needs to know about lawyers, accountants, regulations and more to start, so it can be confusing knowing where to go for this information. reSET tells us what we need or directs us to people that specialize in those fields. The professional development courses that Emily Reisner, Impact Strategist at reSET, guides us in has helped our company find its way out to the path we’ve envisioned.

By awalsh February 13, 2026
Dear reSET Community, The Board of Directors today announces the departure of Sarah Bodley as Executive Director of reSET in a planned transition later this year. The Board has immense gratitude for Sarah and all her contributions over the years. Over the last seven years, Sarah has built an amazing foundation for the organization and she leaves reSET in a strong position for continued growth and service. Sarah joined reSET in 2018 and over the past seven years has solidified and expanded reSET’s mission of supporting impact-driven entrepreneurs throughout Connecticut. Here are a few key highlights from Sarah’s time here: Facilitated the acquisition of Collab New Haven, expanding reSET’s footprint to a statewide geography and further enhancing our mission Developed and implemented new core programs including the award-winning Food Incubator, as well as the Food Accelerator, Retail Incubator, Measure What Matters, and Digital Marketing Mastermind Established reSET as a founding partner of the Hartford Culinary Collaborative, enabling greater connectivity and cooperation among food-centric support organizations in our region Doubled the organization’s budget to over 1 Million Dollars, securing multi-year State government grants Won the prestigious Neighborhood Builders Award from Bank of America, and the Leadership Greater Hartford Polaris Community Award in 2022 Established an endowment fund thanks to support from the Zachs Family Foundation to support the long term sustainability of reSET’s mission Over the coming months, we will be continuing our search to find reSET's next Executive Director. Sarah will stay onboard through June to ensure a smooth handoff to our next leader, and will be available as a resource throughout 2026. It is the Board of Directors’ priority, along with Sarah's, to make this transition as smooth as possible to continue the great work Sarah has helped us do over her tenure. The Executive Director’s Job Posting can be found at this link, and we invite you to keep in mind any potential candidates in your community or network that you think might be a great fit. The Board of Directors wishes Sarah the best of luck in her future endeavors. We are appreciative of the dedication and enthusiasm she has given to reSET over the last seven years, particularly navigating our organization seamlessly during the historic times of the pandemic, changes in administration, and an ever-evolving landscape of opportunity for entrepreneurs. We are confident that with Sarah’s support, this transition will be a smooth one for our Connecticut entrepreneurs, partners, and generous supporters. We look forward to continuing our growth and to serving our mission of supporting the social enterprise sector. If you have any questions or concerns during this transition, please don’t hesitate to reach out via contacting admin@resetco.org to get in touch with the board. Sincerely, Ali Lazowski + Dave Menard, co-chairs, reSET Board of Directors
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