Over the years as we connected with incredible from folks from almost every imaginable industry we realized that every nook and cranny of our economy is full of small business owners, artists and creatives who live and breathe what they do – and their stories are nothing short of heroic. It’s the immigrant parents who overcame the odds and kept their small business alive for decades allowing their next generation to thrive and the artisans who pour their passion into every piece and refuse to let even the most common items remain mundane that make our communities come alive. The stories below will inspire you and we hope you’ll take the time to read and connect with these incredible folks.
Rodi Bragg of Rose Alchemista

I’ve been making herbal skincare products since 2012, which inspired me to become a Licensed Esthetician and help others with their skincare concerns. Since childhood, I’ve had a fascination with plants. My first job in high school helped me to afford to be able to buy natural skincare at the store. As an adult, I started working in a health food store, after experiencing bouts of traumatic events, and I turned to holistic beauty for healing myself, which inspired me to help others as well. Read more>>
Indra Persad Milowe

When I thought about all the kitchens that I had cooked in, my favorite was my grandmother’s kitchen. She cooked with three chulhas, outdoor earthen stoves that required a lot of skill to manipulate the pieces of wood and keep the flame burning correctly. To become an “eligible bride,” one of the requirements was to be able to puff a paratha (a type of flatbread), with the right texture and consistency. After mastering that skill, you were allowed to place “your handprint” on her kitchen wall. It was like a graduation! That kitchen brought up a lot of memories of different foods that were cooked for different festivals. Hence my first painting was my grandmother’s kitchen. As I began to plan out this painting, I remembered the smell of freshly made laddos (chickpea sweet balls), which were a favorite dessert of ours and of Lord Ganesh. Lord Ganesh is the “Remover of All Obstacles” and the first Hindu deity to be worshiped in all festivals and ceremonies. Therefore, my second painting was Ganesh Chaturthi (birthday of Ganesh). Read more>>
Matt Ehnes

I was born and raised in Montana, where at an early age, I learned the impact a photo can have. In high school my hobby became my passion and I decided to turn that passion into my career. I pursued my passion at the brooks institute in Los Angeles for 3 years, studying all forms of art and taking advantage of the unique culture the L.A. area offers. After graduating, I made my way back to Montana where i enjoy weaving the beauty of our natural surroundings into my work with weddings, families, students, nonprofits, charities, and even sports. Read more>>
Kate Oduh of Strand Savvy Studios PLLC

I’ve always known I wanted to be a hairstylist/cosmetologist. From a very young age it was the career I truly desired. I grew up in a Nigerian (Igbo) household so although I wanted to go straight to cosmetology school after high school, my parents insisted that I first get my undergraduate degree. I attended and graduated from Illinois Wesleyan University with BA in Business Administration. I then went on to cosmetology school and received my cosmetology license and then immediately went on to obtain my cosmetology instructor’s license. By the grace of God, I am now the owner of my salon: Strand Savvy Studios PLLC. Read more>>
Amy Lynn Durham of Create Magic At Work

I used to be a corporate executive in the retail industry, managing hundreds of employees at both private and publicly traded companies. But as I advanced in my career, I began to experience burnout and a deep sense of loneliness, which I now realize came from the isolating nature of the executive role. To counter this, I started incorporating more human-centered activities into my leadership approach, allowing my teams and me to connect on a deeper level. Around the same time, I was undergoing a personal spiritual awakening, which led me to make the tough decision to leave the corporate world. I knew I wanted to bring more heart and human connection into workplaces, and that’s how “Create Magic at Work” was born. I had planned my exit a year in advance, giving myself time to travel, reflect, and write my book. Read more>>
Rashana Barnes-miller

I was working in education, and was just offered an Assistant Principal position at a high school in West Philadelphia. During that same time my husband was offered a position in Richmond, VA. While I did NOT want to leave my friends, family, and new job, I knew that it was the right decision for us to move. I found myself in a new city without any job prospects and started to question EVERYTHING! While my husband went off to work, I was sending out resumes, cold calling non-profits and high schools, and keeping my fingers crossed. I even offered to volunteer at a few places just so I could make connections. After a while, It felt really daunting and isolating. Read more>>
Arielle Cole

I knew dance would always be special in my life since my first dance class at Jensen’s School for the Performing Arts as a 3-year-old. Everything about it brought me joy: the discipline, the community, the performance… I remember making up entire dance productions in my bedroom, complete with a curtain hanging from my loft bed, detailed programs I handed out to my parents, and recruiting my brother as the emcee and stagehand. I danced throughout middle and high school, performing with competitive dance teams and performance groups. After earning my BFA in Dance from the University at Buffalo, I performed for various dance companies, most notably Keshet Dance Company in Albuquerque, NM, and PERSpectives Dance Company in my hometown of San José, CA. I also taught at dance studios throughout the Bay Area, cultivating my passion for sharing dance with others. Read more>>
Rosa Sarmento of Ideablossoms

Here’s the revised version of your text, optimized for clarity while maintaining the same tone and personality: This story begins back in 2015, but I’ll keep it short and sweet. I was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where I went to school and started my career. By trade, I’m a fashion designer, and I spent about six years working in the fashion industry in Brazil before making the bold decision to move abroad. I still have a deep love for fashion, it’s art, it’s self-expression, but I didn’t love the industry. The relentless deadlines, the lack of work-life balance, and the overwhelming production demands driven by fast fashion. By 2015, I couldn’t ignore the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. So, I started traveling, searching for answers and signs in different parts of the world. That year, I pretty much used all my savings to visit the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Greece, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. Read more>>
Luyao Chang

I think arts has always been in my life and I always love it. When I was in sophomore year high school under all the pressure of Gaokao, the Nationwide Unified Examination for Admissions to General Universities and Colleges in China, facing need to choose my future career, I started to think what I actually loved and kept doing it till then. And I realized it was art always there. There was a gallerist gave me the advice, she believed studying in art history/theory before diving into art practice will benefit my artist career a lot. Then I went to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China for a BA in Art History. During my undergraduate, even I was drawn to all the knowledge of art history and really enjoyed researching and writing, I never forgot making art and still want to go a MFA for Fine Arts. So I came to US three years ago and studied at School of Visual Arts in New York. I guess that’s how I started. Read more>>
Maude Gagnon of Southie Cookie

Southie Cookie began in 2021 in my tiny South Boston apartment kitchen when I realized that there were no big, gooey cookies available in the neighborhood. I started posting my cookies on Instagram and a couple months later, my neighbors were lining up outside my apartment to pick up their orders. In 2023, I graduated to a commercial kitchen, quit my 9-5 in marketing and dove into the business full time! Since then, Southie Cookie has been featured on platforms like The Boston Globe, NBC10 Boston, The Hub Today and the Boston Celtics. In addition to our online shop & nationwide shipping, we also love to cater events (anything from weddings, showers, to corporate). Read more>>
Kayla Sweet

My story started well before I was born, with the lived experiences of my parents, the love that brought them together, and the pain that tore them apart. My dad died by suicide when I was only four years old. I grew up with that absence where there was once love. Although I don’t remember much from my beginnings, when I think about my story I always find myself reflecting on my dad. Growing up with the knowledge that people can become so sad, so helpless, so desperate that they choose to leave their earthly life prematurely creates an interesting internal dynamic. For me, it created a curious and compassionate outlook on life. I wanted to know and understand people. I wanted to understand mental health, healing, growth, and resilience. I also knew from a young age that while everyone deserved access to the tools and resources they needed to thrive in their lives, not everyone had equal access to those tools. Read more>>
Daniel Ford

To start it off, I can’t really remember if it was craigslist or maybe Facebook or I was looking for a job as an extra. I need up coming across a job posting for being an extra and a college project. I sent them a selfie of myself and they said they liked my work and that I was invited to the shoot. The shoot was at Depaul University, which I was familiar with the area cause I used to work Downtown. Once I enter the room and I met the people that I needed to meet, I took a seat and they told me just to act normal, act like I was doing some work, I act like I was paying attention to the class, to the teacher more specifically. Everything was OK and the real test really happen when they want to be B roll footage of all of the students, like a panning shot from left to right of our facial expressions to the teacher. This means we all we’re going to get a close-up shot and this was the real test on how I felt about the film industry as a whole and they put the camera on my face and somehow it didn’t feel as weird as I thought it would’ve been. Read more>>
Amy Rost of ARC Pilates

From Challenge to Change: My Pilates Journey at ARC Pilates Life often teaches us through our toughest challenges, leading us down paths we least expect but most need. My own path to Pilates began at a point when everything around me seemed to be unravelling. As a mother of four, including twin toddlers, a vibrant five-year-old daughter, and a 16-year-old son diagnosed with Friedrich’s Ataxia—a heartbreaking, progressive neuromuscular disease—I was overwhelmed. Coupled with the demands of a 50-hour work week as an administrator in a spine clinic, I was at my breaking point. A New Beginning on the Reformer During my first Pilates session, I found something transformative—a relief I hadn’t felt in years. As I lay on the reformer, the springs gently supported my tension-filled body, allowing me to breathe and move freely. In those moments, I found a sanctuary, a moving meditation that brought peace and a renewed focus on my well-being. Read more>>
Melissa Fox

I am an artist and documentary filmmaker in Chicago. I’ve lived and studied in Chicago my whole life. As a student of Chicago Public Schools, as a graduate of The University of Chicago at Illinois and as a working filmmaker in the city – I am honored to be shaped by Chicago. I started my journey as a kid in CPS on the South-Side with excellent art teachers who encouraged me. They constantly put me in rooms with other talented artists and with any program the city would offer me as a youth. I studied with fellow artists as the first graduation class of Gallery 27 for the Arts, now a program of After School Matters. Back then I was learning 3D animation software with hopes of joining Pixar. Read more>>
Walter Boza of The Collab Hub

I landed my first job as a junior in college back in Venezuela. My major was in Advertising and Public Relations, but my first job had little to do with that. A fellow student was working at one of the leading marketing research companies in Venezuela, and they needed a bilingual computer programmer. My classmate recommended me for the position. Aside from playing with my Commodore 64 in the 80s, I had zero experience writing code. However, I was bilingual and eager to gain work experience before graduating, so I applied and got the job. The learning curve was steep, but within a few short weeks, I was succeeding as a programmer, solving problems that more experienced programmers couldn’t. This early experience instilled in me a curiosity, a drive to learn, and a willingness to push myself out of my comfort zone—qualities I’ve carried throughout my career. Read more>>
Christina Martin

Hi, I am Christina Martin, founder of Mom to MILF. LLC. I am a single mom of 3 wonderful children and I started this business to help empower mothers to not only be great mothers for their children but great to themselves. Never feel like you’re going through this journey alone because there’s millions of mothers struggling with you whether emotionally, physically, and mentally. I never planned to be a single mother one time much less three times but I am so thankful for my babies. The saying, “What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger” is so real! I get multiple messages weekly with questions from women, I speak at empowerment events, I motivate people to jump on this fitness journey with me, and some people just love to hear my story. I always tell them the same thing…it’s all possible with the help of God! Read more>>
Meghan Cormier

My love for telling stories probably began as a child. I was a Disney kid who loved watching fairytales and love stories bloom in an artful and emotional way. That’s how wedding photography and videography feels to me. I feel like I’m swept into another world when I’m behind my camera. I’m fully immersed in the story! I began my wedding photography business in 2021 during the pandemic. I was working full-time but yearning to do something creative. Photography and filmmaking had always been a dream of mine. One day I decided to stop dreaming and take action. I began working on my photography full time in the summer of 2021 by shadowing other photographers and doing free photoshoots to build my portfolio. My work improved with practice and I began offering weddings on my own in 2022. In 2023 I began offering wedding videography and have found my perfect little niche! I love creating wedding films alongside my photography to encapsulate the essence of someone’s big day in both mediums. Photo offers something so different that video just can’t and vise versa. I love that I’m able to stop one moment in time with photography but also document tears falling, choked up voices, and laughter in video. Read more>>
Loren Lukens

I was a college art student planning on studying painting and sculpture, when I took a requisite ceramics class and was immediately hooked. Pottery coalesced form and function along with a traditional path of craftmanship that I found appealing given my farm boy upbringing where I learned about natural processes, husbandry and resource responsibility. After several makeshift studios during my college days, I found a serious work space in Santa Fe, NM, and benefitted from the arts and crafts reputation of the community and strong tourist saturation along with reasonable living costs of the mid 70’s. Five years of full time studio work prepared me for my next big change, when my wife and I moved to Seattle, WA in 1979. Renting store front studio space helped me introduce myself to the burgeoning art community and we were able to buy a small house before the Seattle housing market blew up. Read more>>
Judy Maxine of Judy Maxine PMU

I’ve always had a passion for beauty and aesthetics, starting my career in the industry back in 2011. I was fortunate enough to work with prestigious brands under the LVMH umbrella, where I honed my skills and created makeup looks for high-profile fashion shows and events. This experience deepened my love for transformative beauty, which eventually led me to the world of permanent makeup and paramedical tattooing. In 2018, I took the leap into tattooing, blending my background in makeup artistry with a desire to help clients feel confident and empowered. Today, I specialize in permanent makeup and paramedical tattooing, offering services that enhance natural beauty and restore confidence after trauma or medical conditions. Every treatment I provide is crafted with care and precision, drawing on years of expertise to achieve the best results for my clients. Whether it’s creating the perfect brow, camouflaging scars, or restoring features, my mission is to bring out the beauty that’s uniquely yours. Read more>>
Michelle Falanga

I began as an Actor….many many years ago in 1996 – which happened by accident. A few years into my Acting Career, I decided to delve into Voice Over. I performed every weekend in improv shows, did commercial work from time to time and some local theater productions as well as a handful of Voice Over gigs and I did these BOTH on the side of a full time job until in 2013 when I was laid off from that job. I decided to take the leap of faith (with encouragement from my husband) and go all in with a Voice Over Career full time. The last 11 years have been a whirlwind of incredible experiences and amazing jobs as well as the challenges and uncertainty of growing and fostering your own business and being a self employed Voice Talent. I have achieved things I only dreamed of…I won two Emmy’s and a Telly for my voice work. I have heard my voice fill a stadium… I have been able to work on so many projects that inspired, empowered and made people feel something… I always say, I can do a lot with my voice…but connection and authenticity (and often goosebumps) is my wheelhouse and my favorite type of project to work on. Read more>>
Amy Fredericksen of All About Organizing

After completing student teaching and earning my Bachelor’s degree in elementary education, I realized that I actually enjoy working with my hands and that the classroom environment just wasn’t for me. After 3 years of playing scared, I finally decided to quit my full time office job and start my own business doing something I loved and was good at (professional organizing). I started my professional organizing company formerly known as All About Organizing back in 2019. After creating hundreds of functional systems for many clients, I realized that there were still tasks that were getting missed or forgotten (home maintenance, calendar/schedule errors) or that people just didn’t enjoy doing (laundry). Read more>>
Destini French of The Cultured Community Center and Cultured Roots MT

I’m originally from Los Angeles, California when I got recruited to play basketball here, I thought there was gonna be at least someone to do my hair in Montana. I was wrong and I had to teach myself how to braid my hair. Years later, after our graduated college, I was eating at a restaurant and a server asked me who did my hair when I responded that I did it myself. She asked if I could do her hair and that’s what sparked this idea of doing hair in the first place. Two years later, after growing a brand just doing hair in my basement salon as a side hustle, I discovered that hair is a passion that I wanted to pursue. So in the fall of 2020 I quit my 9 to 5 forever and went to cosmetology school and in January 2022. I started in a real official salon. Read more>>
Obisoulstar

I was born in Chicago, my family and I move back to Nigeria when I was 5 years old where I found and fell in love with art and soon after. I came back to Chicago at the age of 18 or 19 when I was able to travel alone and over the years ,I perfected my crafts. Read more>>