The Real West Michigan
The Real West Michigan Podcast brings you powerful, personal conversations with creatives, entrepreneurs, community builders, and go-getters from all walks of life. Hosted by Eldon Palmer, each episode dives into honest stories of resilience, reinvention, purpose, and passion—stories that resonate far beyond geography.
Whether you’re here for inspiration, a fresh perspective, or a reminder that extraordinary people are doing meaningful work in everyday places, this show is your invitation to listen, learn, and be moved.
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The Real West Michigan
How this Mom on A Mission is Improving Lives of the Youth in her Community and YOU CAN TOO!
Tapestry Rockford collects and distributes clothing, shoes, school supplies, sports equipment, and other essentials to school-aged children in need throughout Rockford and surrounding areas. Founded by Shawn Loney, this local nonprofit transforms donations from the community into a dignified shopping experience where students can select items they need at no cost.
• Began as a personal collection in Loney's basement before expanding to a six-room facility
• Partners directly with schools to identify and serve students in need
• Provides seasonal items like winter coats, Halloween costumes, and sports equipment
• Offers 24-hour turnaround on most requests, with personal delivery to schools
• Operates by appointment to ensure privacy and a positive shopping experience
• Connects families with other resources like photographers for senior portraits and tailors for prom dresses
• Volunteer opportunities available, especially for high school students needing community service hours
• All items are free to clients, with no qualifications or paperwork required
• Creates partnerships with other nonprofits to ensure all donations find appropriate homes
Follow Tapestry Rockford on Facebook and Instagram @TapestryRockford or visit www.tapestryrockford.com to learn about current needs or to schedule an appointment. For donations or questions, email tapestryrockford@gmail.com.
Video Podcast available here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRealWestMichigan
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I can never not smile when I do that. All right, welcome back. Today we have Shawn Loney with Tapestry Rockford, mom of two teenage boys and a wife here in Rockford, and she's going to share a little bit about her backstory, but mostly about Tapestry Rockford. And so what is Tapestry Rockford?
Speaker 2:Tapestry Rockford is a local Rockford and surrounding areas nonprofit. We collect and distribute items for school-aged children, primarily so that can be clothing, shoes, gym shoes, dress shoes, school supplies, coats, hats, boots, sports equipment, sports shoes you name it Anything that a school age child could use to get through the day or the evening, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, awesome Like costumes.
Speaker 2:We do costumes for Halloween. We do coats and hats and boots in the winter. Sports has been a big thing recently with the spring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect. Like things like, even like athletic shoes. Pretty much anything and everything. Yes.
Speaker 2:Athletic shoes have been huge. We have not only clothing but we have a ton of kids coming in and teacher requests for gym shoes for the younger kids.
Speaker 1:I asked that too because as a kid I had troubles with athletic shoes Like I had to buy my own. Just plain high school, like these $10 ones that you could feel the cleats in the bottom of your feet.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it's great. We have a wonderful collection of athletic shoes it's actually one of my favorite things to get in and we have a nice variety. We have some amazing brands and things that really get the kids excited to shop.
Speaker 1:So how does it work? How do you find clients or people in need?
Speaker 2:Finding clients has been interesting. I started off publishing kind of our information on the Buy Nothing Project on Facebook and some of the other groups that I've been involved in and kind of targeting people that were asking for things that I had a lot of and kind of built a community that way and word of mouth and decided shortly after that that I really wanted to get in with the schools. I decided that meeting people just in the community wasn't enough and we needed to make sure that the kids had what they needed for their day-to-day school needs. So we started talking with some local elementaries. This is we brought up costumes. This was right before Halloween that I really did a push at the schools and said you may not know who we are or what we're doing yet, but we have a ton of costumes. We will come to you, we will deliver them to the school, let the kids try them on and keep them, and that was a huge turning point in the district.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine I was able to Personal service the kind of delivering making it easy, reducing friction.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. It was awesome. Some of the teachers sent me a list of other teachers in their building, what they needed, what sizes, and I came in with a tub and the kids came to the office and picked out whatever it was they needed for Halloween. So that was kind of my entry introduction to working closely with the schools. From there it turned into the hats and boots and coats, recess needs and really started working closely with the different teachers in the elementary schools specifically. At that same time I developed a relationship with students at the high school through National Honor Society and student council. So I also started working with counselors at Rockford High School for their needs and decided that that might be the way I want to go working through the schools primarily.
Speaker 1:So people in the school, they contact you. You have some goods saved up. I guess let's rewind a little bit. If you were to give like a 30 second overview of what you do, what you offer, what does that look like? Like, what's your like?
Speaker 2:quick If I was selling to the idea to someone at the school basically because that's what I asked you what do you do?
Speaker 1:Yeah?
Speaker 2:the biggest thing is that I would like to get out to people that are asking that question, and how I can help them, primarily through the schools, would be letting them know that it is very personal and it is very easy. That's one of the things I had another teacher speak out about is that everyone would be using this if they had any idea how easy I made it. I've spent a lot of time between myself, my volunteers, getting information from different people in the school community about what they need. So, starting with the gym clothes that was a big thing Having gym shoes, having hoodies, having gloves you know things that they need and having them available in different sizes and styles so that when someone calls and has a need, I've been able to do a 24-hour-ish turnaround and deliver it to their school building. So I feel like that's one of our biggest things is when someone reaches out. The turn time is very quick. We have a lot of stuff in our inventory that we're able to provide to them in a very quick manner.
Speaker 1:That's great. I still remember. I know this whole thing kind of hits me because back when I was a kid in school we were of little means, I guess, and you know you would often get picked on. I'd get in fights over the clothes I was wearing. I had my duct tape track shoes as a little kid. He had Grandpa's pink and paisley plaid shirt what country western shirt, that's all you kind of had and my rustler jeans. I remember that was a one that was just not cool. So it really impacted my self esteem. And I know so many other kids. We kind of grew up in a pretty poor area, um, but people here, even in Rockford, like a lot of people I was just talking to you know a family member about our conversation and last night she's like they have those people that need things in Rockford Because people think Rockford's this really high-end place but we really do have a wide variety of socioeconomics.
Speaker 2:We do.
Speaker 2:That's another one of the reasons that we do what we do is.
Speaker 2:I spent a lot of time in the elementary schools when my children were in elementary and I saw that there was give roughly an 80-20 balance between the students that had everything that they needed for school and the 20 percent that were lacking whether it was the shoes, the clothing supplies, the things that they needed to get through their day.
Speaker 2:And living in a community like Rockford where there's so much to offer, it hurt me to see that there were kids that are given the same opportunity as my kids but they're not navigating it the same way that my kids are. And it was definitely something that hit me that there are people that are willing to give these items, have these barely used items, and there are families right in my own kids' classrooms that don't have these items or have them, like you said. That just weren't the same and I know everybody always touches on bullying and inclusion and all the different things, and I just thought if this was one little way that we could help balance that out while the kids are in school, you know, just for their day-to-day, that that's how I can help.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great, it's amazing. It seems so simple. It just you got people here and people here that need, and you're kind of that conduit and that helping hand. But it makes such a big difference because they might be here and here, but they're like worlds apart.
Speaker 2:Yep, that actually brings it into me. For if somebody was to ask, when you talked about earlier, what do I do, I'm a middleman. I'm the one that has time to offer. That's the thing. My kids are both in school. My husband works full-time. I've been blessed to be home with the kids and they're both in middle school now. So my during the day needs. I'm no longer a room mom. I have my days free for the most part.
Speaker 2:But it allows me to pick up donations from donor porches. It allows me to deliver to the schools. It allows me to do the things that a single mom with four kids just doesn't have the time to do when they have the need to get these items. They can't go porch to porch picking up a bag of, you know, size seven, eight girls clothes to only have one item work. This allows me to do that work. It allows me to have a place where they can come to shop, where the students feel like they are shopping. I've heard more than once we love this store. You mean we get to shop and take what we want. You know, it just gives them the same experience that others might be able to have and it just I can do that for them. So if I can do that, that's kind of my goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's such a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1:Like, the personal service thing is one of the other things Picking it up from people's homes, delivering it to the school. There's such a you know, and if time is our most valuable commodity, then, like you're giving the most valuable thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to be honest, I've had a lot of people ask about that and I mean, if you think about it, if you've had kids in sports in Rockford Rockford's a huge area and I have two boys that are active in sports and other organizations and I feel like sometimes I feel like I'm just a chauffeur. Now, if I can stop and pick up and drop off on the way, I'm all about maximizing my time. So it's most of the time time it's not inconvenient for me, it's just one more stop that I do for work. So the kids know half the time we have to stop somewhere else to pick up something for work and it's just become second nature. So that's the easiest thing I can give is my time.
Speaker 1:So great, awesome, like we'll get into a little bit more. But before we get kind of too far down the road, let's get back to, maybe, the origin story.
Speaker 2:How did this come to start? Where did the idea come from? That's a good question. I think it's something I've always wanted to do In prepping for today's conversation. It had me do a little bit of thinking and I realized that growing up, my grandma always had this closet in the back room, in the blue room. My family will know that always had gifts and things that she purchased and I'd always ask her you know, what do you have in here and why? And she said they were good items for a good price and she would just buy them and keep them in this closet in the back room. So my sister and I would play in there and look at all the stuff and I didn't think much of it until our conversation where I realized that I did the same thing. I would have a closet full of.
Speaker 1:Listen, and we just want to take a quick break to thank our sponsor, the Palmer Group. They are the ones financing this and making everything happen. That'd be me, elizabeth, joni and the rest of the crew. We appreciate your business and if you have a place to buy, sell whether it's vacant land, multifamily, single home, condo, looking for a vacation home up north we can help. Just have a couple questions, just reach out to us and we'll be happy to and answer them. Also, we are able to help people buy and sell homes around the country. We have a network of great agents, particularly in Florida, but we can find you an agent anywhere in the country and even across the world we might be able to help as well. So we will be happy to interview multiple agents, if they're not already in our network, and make some recommendations to make that transition easier. Whether you're moving from there to West Michigan or from West Michigan to another place, or from Florida to California or Texas to Tennessee, we're happy to help. So, again, thank you, and now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Either things I purchased for a good price and didn't necessarily need, but I knew somebody would one day, so I would put it in the closet. And I started saving gently used things from my own kids and just built up a closet full of things that I had no idea what I was going to do with them. And it wasn't until I started working in the schools and realizing the need that we talked about that I realized, okay, somebody needs these and I need to match make them. I realized, okay, somebody needs these and I need to match make them. So I started matching them online with people. But it wasn't until last Christmas not this year, but the year before that I said I want to have a store, I want to do something, I want to be able to get these items to the people that need them. So it was basically January of 2024 that I created Tapestry.
Speaker 2:My son helped me come up with the name. We got the social media going. We applied for a public charity 501c3, got our website going and just spent the first six months of the year getting all of that together and collecting from friends. I just put the word out to my friends hey, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I've been doing, and I know a lot of them had been too. So all of those things that moms throughout the community had been keeping in their own closet. I said, listen, I'm going to do something with those things. So I filled my basement with my stuff, their stuff and anyone that offered stuff to me.
Speaker 2:I didn't really know what I was going to do with it, where it was going to go. I just felt a calling and started this. So mid-summer my husband said the basement is full and you've got most of your things in order. What are we going to do? So I started looking for a space One of the big things I didn't want to do. I didn't want a storefront. I didn't want a storefront in Rockford Number one. I couldn't afford it because at this point we had zero money. We just had a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to take a storefront somewhere that could bring jobs, income, into Rockford. So I needed to find a place that was a little off the beaten path but had plenty of room for piles and racks of clothing. So I did find the place that we're at now. We're right at 10 and Algoma and it was just outside of town, which was perfect, and I started with two rooms. I walked in there and walked out with the keys and said this is going to be perfect. So we moved. In August actually July we started getting ready and moved everything out of the basement into the two rooms that we started in, and in August I opened the doors, put out information on social media and said we have back to school clothes, back to school shoes. We received some donations of back to school supplies and backpacks and just all the things I've been collecting and we saw over 55 kids in the first month.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's awesome. That's a lot of lives.
Speaker 2:So it was a lot of, you know, a leap of faith, a lot of collecting, a lot of patience from my family and a lot of help from my friends and other donors, and then it just it all came together in August and we realized that this was going to work.
Speaker 1:We have the and we can get maybe into more later on how people can help. But so you have the space. Is it free?
Speaker 2:It is free. All of our items that we collect are free coming in to us. Being a 501c3, we do offer donation receipts, if anyone needs that, for tax donation, for tax deduction. But all the items are in good condition. We ask that they are school appropriate and in school condition. We really are trying to avoid play clothes and things like that. We want something that somebody could be proud to shop and wear to school. We receive a lot of items still with tags that someone had bought for their own child and they outgrew it before they wore it or pushed it to the back of the closet, things like that. So we get a lot of really nice clothing that comes in free.
Speaker 2:Our clients shop completely free of charge. There's absolutely no charge to come in. We are by appointment only. That allows the family that private time to shop, a little different than going to say a Goodwill, for an example, where they can make an appointment to shop. We have a little fitting room. They take what they want. If there's items that they aren't exactly sure about, I allow them to take them. Let the kids try them at home, see if it'll work. We have a drop-off bin right out front and they can return any items that they don't use. So it's just a revolving door.
Speaker 1:What do you do? I know some of the charities won't accept things or if they they get them in, they just throw them away. Things like Rockford Rams gear apparel like team app, team apparel Do you deal with that stuff?
Speaker 2:That is a great question and I have two very important things to say about. That is number one yes, rockford Rams, or any local sports, or Sardar or Cedar Springs. We now the two rooms we started with we've now expanded to six. Oh wow, so one of those rooms is the locker room.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:That room contains all of our athletic shoes, gym class and things like that, but there's also several racks of cleats, and baseball and football and basketball shoes and soccer cleats galore, so we do have all that available. We have gently used sports equipment, and all of the ram wear or major league sports or just any of our sports gear is in the locker room for kids that are specifically looking for that. The other thing that you brought up, though, is things that other people don't want, other organizations don't take. One of the biggest things that I really want to stress today is the partners that I've made over the past year of doing this have allowed us to focus on the kids and the needs that we have, while still distributing people's donations and items to the community.
Speaker 2:We work closely with three different organizations that take baby infant toddler donations. We do not. We accept them in. I often get big bulk donations. In order to get what I want, I kind of have to take what is given, so when I have baby infant toddler items come in, there's three other organizations that pass out for free that I work with, and they come pick up for me or I deliver to them. There are other organizations that take adult clothing are other organizations that take adult clothing. While we do accept adult clothing, it needs to be teen-specific, since we offer for school-aged children usually kind of the 18-19 is really the max that we see.
Speaker 2:They don't want to see mom clothes. I've been told that some of the things that we've brought in that I think are adorable, of course, are mom clothes. So the best part's been having the high school girls go through our clothes because they have no problem telling me that nobody's going to want that. So the mom clothes. I have other organizations. Grand Rapids Police Department has programs that I partner with, there's some shelters that we partner with, and our most recent and last stop for clothing is a girl who runs a homeless outreach program in Grand Rapids. So everything that we get in, if it does not go to the shelf in Tapestry or to one of our clients, goes to another organization that we've formed a relationship with to ensure that everything is going to somewhere that needs it. There are very few things that we would quote dispose of and even those, there are organizations locally that will take clothing and items for rags and things like that, so we don't have any waste.
Speaker 1:That's great. You said you had students that kind of help. Did they just volunteer? What happens there? And or this is a little bit personal recently, because I know a lot of high schoolers and even college students they need and they want and they're looking for community service hours or ways to donate their time and whether they put it on their scholarship applications or resumes or whatever. Yep, is that a possibility?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I wrote a letter today for three wonderful girls from Rockford that reached out to me after the first of the year from the National Honor Society.
Speaker 2:I actually had two different girls reach out, both asking how they can help and we decided that there was going to be a team of three and they organized a student volunteer day.
Speaker 2:That was kind of their project. Service project was to organize this for us and they set up a sign-up genius and things like that through the school and every other week they had a sign-up available for any student in the school that needed volunteer hours from any organization. So they were the ones to set it up, get it going. They would come in every other week, bring the students in, show them how it worked and what we needed done, as well as volunteer on their own. So they've been doing that since the beginning of the year and we're still going strong and I'm hoping that this is a relationship that I can continue with NHS and with the students in Rockford offering these hours. They've been the greatest help because they know the items more than I do and they've done great organizing with what goes where and what kind of clothes we need, what we need more of. It's been wonderful for them.
Speaker 1:That's great kind of leadership and you know practice projects for them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it helps me more than I can express. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the items are free. What about your retail space or your space? Do you have an expense for that? Not free.
Speaker 2:The basement was free. The basement was free but also came with a cost and, yes, the space we're in currently. I will say when I originally started looking in Rockford, I was terrified by the amount of rent to be right in town. I had the dream just like any other business down here, I want the cutest little shop right downtown it of rent to be right in town. I had the dream just like any other business down here, I want the cutest little shop right downtown. It's going to be great.
Speaker 2:And then I realized the cost of what we're doing and how much it was going to cost me personally until I got this going and the space that we're in. Like I originally said, we started with two suites. That was what I could afford at the time and until I brought people on board and started doing some more marketing and things like that, we're currently at six suites and they are full. We are beyond full right now. I'm going to really have a lot of kids working next week to make it shoppable again, because the donations have been coming in and piling up those suites. I have a flat rate rent expense.
Speaker 2:So, they've been gracious enough to offer me a flat rate amount and, as of today, we are paid through June. Due to donations we've received from businesses in the community right here in Rockford that have heard about us from word of mouth mostly, we haven't really done any asking or any promotion.
Speaker 1:We've had In our conversations, like you're not super comfortable with the financial ask.
Speaker 2:This is the one part that I will say.
Speaker 2:When we took the leap of faith back in August, I financed through December and said I really want this to work and I have until December to prove to the community and my family and everybody that this is going to work, and that was our original agreement.
Speaker 2:So over the Christmas into beginning of the new year months I had donations come in from three very substantial donations come in from sponsors in the community that covered us through June, which allowed me to take a deep breath and say, okay, word is getting out, people are aware of what we're doing, they believe in us, they are giving us what we need to keep the doors open that let us breathe and get settled and get things going into spring, where we are now, and myself and a couple members we had to form a board when we started the organization, so there are members of the board that have been helping me get ready to ask which, like you said, very uncomfortable for me.
Speaker 2:I wanted to do it all, but I realized the cost of having this is just increasing. We do our best to keep it minimal. Nobody takes any money, nobody's paid, it's all volunteer and, like we said donor, free in, free out, but the rent expense is something that we need to share with the community and let them know that, in order to keep the doors open, we do need corporate sponsorship.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anybody out there wants to be a corporate sponsor? Absolutely, we'll have. We'll have. In the end we'll. We'll have contact info and there'll be a link in the comments on the YouTube video on how you can get involved also at the end. So Sure, so what's? What are the kind of the next steps? Where are you at right now? What are kind of the next steps? Where are you at right now? Is there a seasonal?
Speaker 2:thing happening Right now. Most of my appointments are sports related. Like we talked about earlier, having the locker room, We've outfitted several kids with cleats and baseball pants and getting them ready for the spring sport, which is great. It's something that has always kind of been important to me, because I feel like Rockford's known for sports right.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. When we started talking about where this came from and I started telling you about noticing that there were kids that didn't have what my kids had the same opportunities, the same things I realized that there's absolutely a piece of that that pertains to sports. There are kids who could be the next soccer star, but they don't have the ability to try. Startup costs for any sports are not cheap and, again, with my boys going through sports, they outgrow a pair of cleats every season, gently used, and there's certainly a market for that, but also there's a need for that. So I have a ton of that stuff in our locker room and we've been outfitting any kids that wanted to try something new without the risk, you know, of their parents having to invest a small fortune for them to try soccer, only to discover they really like baseball better, right, and they're actually better at hockey. So you know that was a big thing is to try to let kids explore sports. So that is a big thing. Is to try to let kids explore sports. So that is a big thing right now. The other thing is prom. We have prom coming up.
Speaker 2:We had two girls, one from Sparta High School and one from Rockford High School that came to me in search of prom wear and prom help. They didn't really know where to go, weren't in a position to get the items that they needed. So we had a couple appointments. They shopped the inventory that I have and found dresses that would work. A friend of tapestry was willing to alter them to make sure the dresses fit good. And we found jewelry. I've had some jewelry donations which I got to bust out. We haven't used that before, but that was exciting and these two girls have now. We worked out either a discounted or complimentary ticket through the school. So they're ready. They're prom ready. I delivered one when I got back from spring break right to her house, and she was elated to have that and to have the opportunity to go to prom.
Speaker 1:I think for people listening or watching too. Oftentimes there's a lot of listening or watching too, like oftentimes there's a lot of people in our community like great people that want to give and want to help, and you've kind of shared some of these too, and I think not everybody really knows Schools sometimes do a decent job of sharing that. Hey, there are help. Sometimes pride gets in the way of people you know asking for help. So I think it's these are good things to kind of share with the community that, look, it's a blessing to both people. There's people would love to give to somebody, love to buy their prom dress or buy their ticket or whatever Makes them feel great. And then there's people that need that so great to be that matchmaker.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's the fun in it is. I know there are people that want to help. I have talented friends all over Rockford that have things to offer and they don't necessarily know how to give them away. So, having tapestry as a connection, I have connected with local photographers that have offered senior portraits, headshots for the yearbook and things like that to families that couldn't afford a session. I've had like I mentioned, the tailor for the dress. We've had a lot of different people from the community that have things to offer and we've helped match them with people in the community that have a need.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's been great.
Speaker 1:So beforehand you also shared another. Like you were on vacation recently and had something happen, can you share?
Speaker 2:that story we did. We were on vacation with our family and I received a phone call. That was a little bit shocking but it was from the Kent County Sheriff's Office and it turns out that while we were gone and this tragically happened, about a mile from our shop and a mile from our house there was a home fire and word got to the Sheriff's Department of Tapestry. The deputy called, said you know, I'm aware of your organization. I'm sorry I haven't had a chance to come out yet, which I was flattered. I'm hoping he does but said that we heard you can help and I said absolutely so.
Speaker 2:I spent a little bit of time on the phone with the deputy and then the victim advocate after this house fire, trying to find out what their immediate needs were and put out some stuff on social media, had a bunch of people reply with how they were willing and able to help.
Speaker 2:We collected some funds, we collected clothing. The day we came home I took in all of the donations that were offered, met with the victim advocate the next morning and the brother of the victim provided a large suitcase full of children's clothes immediately, because that's what we had in and some hygiene items brand new undergarments, socks, any of the things that their son that nine-year-old, I believe, son would need. And then the next step was to collect clothing for the father. So we looked at the clothes that we had in our adult size room, put out a special request, got another whole bag delivered to them the next day. So that was awesome. It was awesome that we had the things for the kids to help right away and that we were able to get the items in to help his father. But the biggest thing to me out of all of that is I got a call from the sheriff's department.
Speaker 1:You know.
Speaker 2:They know we exist, they know we can help, and they came to us to ask. So that's just another thing that helps reinforce that what I'm doing is is right, it's necessary, and it's seen and it's helping.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so many. Like a lot of guests I have on, we talk business, we talk charity, we talk a lot of guests I have on. We talk business, um, we talk charity, we talk a lot of things, but, um, one of the common threads of the remarkable people I have on here are, like there's always a purpose. Um, it seems to be a common thread and it's so great to hear your purpose being fulfilled in that and that it connects so many other people. There's so many negative things in the news and and all that and then this kind of always reminds me that, look, there's a lot of really good people. Even if we might have differences and other opinions and things people do come together.
Speaker 2:There are so many really good people. I had no idea until I started this just how many good people there are right here, and I think the biggest hang-up is that people don't know how to offer what they have to give. And I think when I was joking about being a matchmaker and things like that, it really is. I really am. I'm able to match people who have things to give with people who have a need, and it's fun.
Speaker 1:Win, win, win.
Speaker 2:It really is. It's very fulfilling for me, it's very fun. Win, win, win. It really is. Yeah, it really is. It's very fulfilling for me, it's very fun. I love when the stories have a happy ending and I love when we find just the perfect item for someone and it's just been really fulfilling for me personally to see these things that I joked about, dreamed about, thought might be a really cool idea or something fun to keep me entertained and to see it coming full circle and really helping has been awesome.
Speaker 1:So is it more work, less work? Anything you've learned from this? Yes, yes to all of those.
Speaker 2:Yes more work, yes, less work. I think one of the biggest challenges I've had is trying to do all of this, start all of this, navigate all of this while still being a full-time mom, because that's who I am, and my husband travels a lot for work, which is why I've had the ability to be home with the kids. It's just worked out for us. But it's also given me a lot of time to dream up things like this and plan how I'm going to do it, and I've spent the last 13 years of my momming trying to maximize time and efficiency and make it all work in the little bit of time that I'm given.
Speaker 2:So more work, yes, less work. It's caused me to be a little more diligent in my planning and coordinating. There's a lot of days where I drop off the kids at school and run to pick up things and drop off my own things and go to the shop and unload, only to fill up a car with another load. I mean it is busy, but those are my free hours. So, yes, it's more work, but I've hopefully my family agrees done my best at trying to fit it into the hours that I have available. I drop off and pick up every day, I'm still at all the games. It still allows me to be the mom I want to be, while also being the helper that I want to be.
Speaker 1:It's amazing to me, like the capacity that we have when we keep adding things that you know, if we have the right mindset, we can add more and part of it, like to me, I find, when I'm focusing on other people's problems, to focus on my own. I might be stressed about getting the kids somewhere.
Speaker 1:You know, my kids are out of the house now, but but I it was. It's easier in some ways to go help somebody else out. It takes my mind off my problems, allows me to help, and then you just it's sort of almost like a meditation or a reset in a way.
Speaker 2:I completely agree. I don't have the same almost panic reaction about satisfying the needs of a client ask that I do, of having to, say, renew my own passport, which I did recently. You know, things like that that are on my to-do list that just get bumped because it's a chore. And, honestly, the things that I'm doing for tapestry at this point are not a chore. I've had people ask if I'm going to take on more, if I want to grow, if I want to become profitable. A lot of different questions have been asked and the answer is no.
Speaker 2:I prefer to stay small, I prefer to stay personal, I prefer to keep it as a very awesome, helpful hobby, because then I don't have that panic and that pressure. I'm able to do only what I can do, and everyone has been very receptive of the boundaries that I've sat with. I only work during appointment hours and things like that. So the balance of picking up from people and giving what I give, coupled with the unique hours that we keep, seems to be a good balance right now and I don't really think I want to go beyond that, because I start to lose that personal touch and if I'm required to do something or forced to do something, it will lessen the enjoyment.
Speaker 2:So that's kind of my response to you know where we're going to go and how big we want this to be, and I would love to see us help in any capacity that we can. But I love that we're staying kind of focused on just school-aged children. There's enough need right there, sadly.
Speaker 1:So when we had a prior conversation you mentioned and I'm kind of just as you mentioned that, though you don't want to expand is there any advice you might want to give somebody that wants to do the same kind of thing and that might be listening in Muskegon or Grand Haven or somewhere else? You mentioned another somebody doing something kind of similar across the state.
Speaker 2:Yes, in fact I brought up tapestry not this Christmas but the year before to my family at Christmas dinner and I said, mom, this is what I want to do. And I described everything that we've just talked about and I'd already spoke with my husband who said that sounds great, go ahead and do it. I don't know if he thought I was going to dive in head first, but he was like yep, go for it. So I was talking to my mom and said here, this is what I want to do. And I told her kind of the dream behind tapestry was not tapestry but my idea. And she said you know, I just saw um. There was a sermon at the church I go to and part of the um, there was a video about this organization in Oxford which is closer to where I grew up. And she said I've got to find this, you won't believe it. So she pulled up on her phone this little segment.
Speaker 1:Listen, and we just want to take a quick break to thank our sponsor, the Palmer Group. They are the ones financing this and making everything happen. That'd be me, elizabeth, joni and the rest of the crew. We appreciate your business and if you have a place to buy, sell whether it's vacant land, multifamily, single home, condo, looking for a vacation home up north we can help. Just have a couple of questions, just reach out to us and we'll be happy to answer them. Also, we are able to help people buy and sell homes around the country. We have a network of great agents, particularly in Florida, but we can find you an agent anywhere in the country and even across the world we might be able to help as well. So we will be happy to interview multiple agents, if they're not already in our network, and make some recommendations to make that transition easier. Whether you're moving from there to West Michigan or from West Michigan to another place, or from Florida to California or Texas to Tennessee, we're happy to help. So, again, thank you, and now back to the show.
Speaker 2:Of a group called Oxford Open-Handed and turns out it was started and I hope this is accurate by some teachers and moms in that community who also started collecting clothing items for kids that they knew had a need in their building, and it spread to the garage and it eventually connected with a church, who gave them a space and they did what I wanted to do. So, first of all, it brought me to tears, second of all, it was incredibly inspiring and, third, it gave me the confidence that, okay, this is a real thing. This idea that I had isn't just some pipe dream. This is a real thing that people are doing and it appears to be working. So I immediately reached out to them, said give me your advice, and they said we don't have any yet.
Speaker 2:We're still navigating the same thing you are. We have no idea. We just take the steps and do what we can. So they said just go for it, good luck. And that's really all it took for me. And that was like I said. Then I just set up all my things, got all my ducks in a row and went for it For a while. It was, you know. Every day I'd wake up and be like what am I doing? Where is this going? And then all of a sudden something snapped and the cart went before the horse and it was going faster than I could catch up. And here we are today still chasing the dream.
Speaker 1:That's just great and very common. I think a lot of successful people, like a lot of us, have all these ideas. We're creative or we want to start a business or entrepreneurship. We have ideas, we think, we think, we think, we plan, we plan, we plan, and really until we start doing, then everything kind of opens up and things may change completely in a different direction. But you know, you hear a lot of different analogies. It's hard to steer a car that's standing still or a boat that's at the dock. You can't, you know you can't steer it. You can't go anywhere until you actually push out from the harbor or get the car rolling 100%, and so I think it's a great example of that.
Speaker 2:Well, that analogy sums up the first almost year of tapestry itself is like I said I didn't ask for funding for the first year. It was one calendar year of prep work, planning. About half of it was spent in a space. But I didn't want to ask for help if I didn't know it was going to work and if I didn't know what we were doing and if I didn't have the confidence to share what I'm sharing with you. I didn't have the confidence to ask you to believe in me. So it happened very fast that I started to believe in myself and believe in tapestry a little bit more. But for the first couple months, every day I was like what am I doing? And then, once it started and people started rolling in, that gave me the confidence and showed me, like you said, the car started moving to use your analogy.
Speaker 2:Once it started going, it gave me the confidence to accept donations knowing I'm really going to do something with them and sign a lease, knowing I'm going to get funding. It's going to happen and it did. But I wanted to make sure that we really knew what we were doing and worked really hard to get in with the people we needed to get in mostly the schools doing and worked really hard to get in with the people we needed to get in mostly the schools so that we could have a real, firm idea of what we're doing and what we're providing before I even made it real. So now it's real. The doors are open, the rooms are full, the relationships are developing every day and it just keeps going. So now I have the confidence to be out here talking about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's a real thing. I'm excited because I'm hoping people watch this, listen to this. I hope, you know, all these relations continue to grow. You get more sponsors, you get more volunteers and really more people are positively impacted, so I'm excited about that. Is there anything else you want to share, any particular stories? Or, if not, then we can get into what needs you might have and how people can help.
Speaker 2:I would say we'll probably transition over to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well what needs do you have and how can people help?
Speaker 2:I would say the needs that we have are ever-changing. First of all, so for anyone that even has the slightest interest in tapestry whether it's as someone who wants to be just an angel donor and just send money, or if it's someone who has a bunch of kids that go through clothes as fast as mine do, or athletes that outgrow cleats during one season, or any of those things Follow my socials. Working with kids. I'm on social media a lot. I've learned. I'm not very good at it, so I have a lot of help, but I've learned that's a really good way to get things out there to the kids who will ultimately be receiving our gifts.
Speaker 2:And we update what we need. We update what we have to offer. We update how to reach me, hours that are available for appointments. All of our information can be found on social media, both Facebook and Instagram, primarily. We do have a website, which we continue to update with our needs. Currently, we actually have an abundance of adult clothing right now that has come in after the holidays, I think a lot of people after the new year were ready to purge.
Speaker 2:I spent the month of January driving through the snow picking up bags of clothes. I have another group from the school coming in to do volunteer work to help sort that out. We're going to offer kind of a giveaway to the families and friends of our student clients. So when the kids go through and discover that there are some items that are not necessarily teen friendly, we're going to put those out. So at this time we've kind of temporarily paused our adult clothing collection until we can get it sorted, like I mentioned earlier to all the different channels that we have Youth clothing like maybe 5 through 16 youth and then adult extra small through large that are teen styles. We will never refuse those. Come in and go out just as quick. When we have appointments come in, they're shopping out of a garbage bag size clothing. So most of the moms that come in have multiple children. So the items that come in get hung up and turn around and go right back out to the community. So I will never refuse those Shoes.
Speaker 2:Always a need. We look for very gently used things that will last them more than a couple wears. That's a good one. This summer we'll be asking for school supplies. We had a large donation from a business here in Rockford a big box of brand new school supplies that got us through last year. We're hoping to reach out again to the community to get some shipments of and the nice stuff you know, the Ticonderoga pencils, the things that make the kids feel like they have, what everybody else is also using. So we've gotten some wonderful donations there, but we were going to be looking for that this summer. To be honest, follow socials, we always have a pop-up need. When you mentioned the fire story earlier, that was something out of our usual scope, but we were able to satisfy the need within two days.
Speaker 1:So what are the?
Speaker 2:handles Tapestry Rockford within two days. So what are the handles? Tapestry Rockford it's just at Tapestry Rockford for Instagram. Facebook is under Tapestry Rockford, it's a business page, and then wwwtapestryrockfordcom. And just to throw it out there, it's tapestryrockford at gmailcom to reach me.
Speaker 1:Perfect, so we can. We'll post those in the in the links of both the podcast and the video podcast. Great, Anything else?
Speaker 2:I think that kind of covers it. I'm just happy to share the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really appreciate you coming in and help get involved. Thank you again. See you guys next time.
