Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jaimie Lewis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jaimie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One deeply underappreciated facet of entrepreneurship is the kind of crazy stuff we have to deal with as business owners. Sometimes it’s crazy positive sometimes it’s crazy negative, but crazy experiences unite entrepreneurs regardless of industry. Can you share a crazy story with our readers?

I was married to my high school sweetheart for 15 years. We had five children and while on maternity leave with our fifth (a boy after four girls), I started a business and that allowed us to be home with our children for five years before his sudden death in 2023. This was at the height of my career, business doing well and while we were preparing to retire early (I was 37 and he was 43). Navigating life after loss, I started a podcast with a widower to share our story and support others navigating their journey after losing the love of their life at a young age while raising young family. Keeping the business going creates a whole new work life challenge that I am facing head on in the midst of unthinkable grief.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I was a freelance grant writer for a large consulting firm while on maternity leave with my fifth child. I didn’t want to return to work and wanted to be with my kids, take them to practice and not allow them to be in after school programs until the sun set. SO my husband and I prayed and put in a lot of work to make my dream a reality. Anese & Associates focuses on capacity building in the form of grant writing for non profits in poor communities to help them access the federal dollars meant for their communities. We focus on climate justice to aid in implementing community based solutions to help with climate change, The business has 26 employees and has tripled in revenue in the last two years.

I am a widowed mom of five kids ages 15-5 and my husband was my one an only .This new life has birthed new challenges and new opportunities to face hard times and show up triumphant and thankful for life despite the daily pain of being widowed. I am starting a non profit geared toward heart failure to help minority communities with blood pressure management and launch a reminder app for those who have to have echo cardiograms and monitory aorta aneurysms. Currently, there is no reminder system for this ailment and many are dying unexpectedly and young of aorta dissections which are being classified as cardiac arrest or heart attack.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My podcast co-host is a widower who I met on Facebook. we posted on the same day and lost our spouse just one month apart. We are departing on a new adventure to tell our story ,share our lives, and inspire others. The podcast will launch this fall and three episodes are already taped. we have great chemistry and believe the following will be great! His son is a D1 recruit to Alabama and I have a multi million dollar business while raising children. We are both black and represent a small community of young widows with limited resources aimed to help us navigate this new life.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

I have started multiple businesses. I had a catering business that did very well. Covid-19 shut down interrupted that so I launched my grant writing business and cannabis compliance business both of which are successful. The catering was a side hustle that led to me taking more time off work than working which meant it was successful and led to be taking maternity leave early the pivoting to a service industry in grant writing that blew up over the last three years. Key milestones included birthing a child, the pandemic and the los of a spouse.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aneseandassociates.com
• Instagram: lewistribemom
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jmelaw/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimielewis/
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jmelaw