Immunocompromised Student From Essex County Starts 2 Companies

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — When it comes to busting the stereotype of the “slacker” college student, Aleah Colón-Alfonso has done her fair share.

Just two years into her academic career at the New College of Florida, the Essex County native has already started two companies, using her own experience as an immunocompromised student as inspiration.

Colón-Alfonso grew up in Glen Ridge and Caldwell, attending Montclair Cooperative School for four years before moving to Sarasota, Florida in 2018 to attend college.

Since then, she’s launched Aleah Wares, a line of patient-friendly sweaters, and Stay Safely Away, which produces clothes, face masks and other items that help people to social distance.

According to a news story from her campus, Colón-Alfonso – who small fiber neuropathy, Lyme disease and accompanying secondary illnesses – has worked on the latter company while in quarantine, ever since she evacuated from the New College campus in March.

“I had been noticing the lack of mask wearing and social distancing in Sarasota, and I just wanted to wear a sign around my neck that said, ‘Please, I don’t want to be on a ventilator’ to try to encourage people to have better behaviors,” Colón-Alfonso said. “So clothing became my wearable sign.”

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