Many of them live half a world away in the poorest countries of the world and had never heard of Sheridan, Wyoming, or the couple that lives there making their lives better.
Christella Jean began working with a group in Haiti in 2010 that sells ethically handmade accessories and home goods created by artisans for a living wage.
At the time she was renting a small house and struggling to get by. But her work with 2nd Hand Goods, a partner of Sheridan-based Bought Beautifully, has given her life a purpose.
“The work I am doing makes me want to live more every day,” she said. “I am proud of this company, myself and the other people from our community that work here. This work makes it possible to feed ourselves and our families each day. We are not dependent on others giving these things to us.
“I have my own home that we built ourselves block by block,” she added. “Also, I can easily pay school fees for my children now, and I can help my family financially today and live with dignity.”
Christella Jean is just one of the hundreds of lives that have been impacted through Bought Beautifully, a nonprofit that searches the globe for impactful producers and partners with them to sell their products in a marketplace where purchases create life-changing opportunities.
It was started by Sheridan residents Emily and Colin Betzler in 2014.
“Even though sometimes you feel a lot of exasperation with how big the world is and how many problems there are, at a fundamental level, you can pop into a store on Main Street, or you can jump online, and you can buy someone a present and know it really is making a difference,” Colin said.
Christella Jean and her husband have two children, but they recently took in her sister’s three after she died not long after giving birth to a baby girl.
“My hope for the future is to always be in good health, so I can continue to work and take care of my children,” she said. “For the people that purchase our goods I say that I want you to be strong and blessed by God, you and your family. And I hope you can continue to do business with us.”
Give Back
Early on, the Betzlers both had an interest in working abroad, but eventually they ended up in Wyoming, and fell in love with Sheridan.
But their interest in what’s happening in the world remained strong, and it was after a trip to Gambia to visit Colin’s brother, who was in the Peace Corps, that the idea for Bought Beautifully began to take shape.
“The situation in Gambia was probably the hardest I’ve ever seen, just complete abject poverty, and for a woman, just no rights, no access to education. It was really a pretty hopeless, hard existence,” Emily said. “We came home with a desire in our hearts. We’re living here in Wyoming, but we don’t want to ignore my sisters around the globe who have such different realities. What can we do?”
They began by committing to buying fair-trade gifts for birthdays and holidays, finding organizations that were doing good work and trying to support them. The more they looked, however, the more organizations the Betzlers wanted to support.
“We just kept saying, ‘Oh, someone should make this easier for people. Other people might like to shop like this,’” Emily said. “It was at that point we were like, ‘I think maybe we’re supposed to do that.’”
The couple created a nonprofit with the goal of helping people sell their products to a larger market, while also telling their stories.
“We were really trying to let them shine through our connection with a much stronger economic market here in the USA,” Colin said. “We looked at the amount of money that Americans spend on gifts every year, and thought if we could just get a little portion where people are choosing to buy from fair-trade groups that have a give-back element, that tiny amount of money would not just change lives, but it would change communities and really change the world.”
They launched an online store with products from five partners, while also doing pop-up shops in Sheridan. The pop-ups were so successful, the Betzlers eventually decided to open a storefront downtown.
“Our original vision was to be more like an online Etsy-type store, but what we found was people resonate so much more when they can see our products and they can touch the products, and when we’re there to tell them the stories,” Emily said. “Within a few years we built a customer base, and we were able to open a store on Main Street, and the community is just amazing with how supportive it is.”
The couple said they now have more groups asking to partner with the nonprofit than they can accept. When selecting partners, they have an in-depth application process to make sure they’re abiding by fair-trade principles and are paying fair living wages in their communities. They also choose partners that are doing more than just providing jobs.
“They’re really looking at the communities in which they’re working to see how they can help create thriving lives,” Emily said. “So whether it’s added child care or empowerment through extra education, they all are doing more than just jobs. They’re really investing in the communities and the individuals they’re working with.”
Bought Beautifully has 47 partners in 27 countries including Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Peru, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Jordan, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia, Haiti, Cambodia, Djibouti, Guatemala and Mexico.
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Anna, a Bought Beautifully intern through Sherian College and the Scott Foundation, works with Lydia, center, during a trip to Guatemala. (Courtesy Photo) -
Emily Betzler, center from left, Jenae Neeson and Alison Meacham of the Bought Beautifully team visit with members of the 2nd Story Goods team during a visit to Haiti in 2017. (Courtesy Photo) -
Eldiberta of Peru began weaving to be able to buy medication for her daughter who had epilepsy. She later established a women’s cooperative that works on unfinished weavings together in their village. (Courtesy Photo)
Together We Thrive
When entering the Bought Beautifully storefront, the faces of the people the store benefits are front and center. Photos of the artisans hang in the front windows, and throughout the store large screens feature more faces from around the world.
One of those is Lydia from Guatemala, who had to leave school after the fourth grade to help take care of her 10 brothers and sisters. She learned to bead from her father and by age 15 she was working fulltime as an artisan.
A few years ago, she connected with the group Friendship Bridge, which allowed her to refine her craft, access educational opportunities and sell her products to a larger market. Now married with two children, Lydia and her husband sell their goods in 15 different locations in Guatemala and employ both men and women in their community when they receive large orders.
She’s committed to sending her two daughters to school through high school and supporting them if they choose to go to college.
“One of the things that we want to do through Bought Beautifully is we want people to know who they’re buying from, so whatever product you buy comes with a little card,” Colin said. “We call it the love story that shares more about the maker behind the product and what their mission is, where they’re located and why it matters.”
When someone checks out at the shop, the register also tallies how many days of dignified employment have been created.
“It’s really exciting to know that, just a small community in Wyoming has been able to create 77,000 days of employment for people around the globe, and there’s a job providing hope and opportunity that wouldn’t be there otherwise,” Emily said.
Jewelry has always been the biggest component of Bought Beautifully’s inventory because it is easy to make in small communities and is affordable to ship. However the variety of products has expanded over the years and includes apparel and accessories, homegoods, totes and purses, and more.
“A lot of partners have different specialties that they’ve developed over time, and some of that constitutes more products that are home goods or decor,” Colin said. “That’s probably what we’ve seen the last five years, is more bigger pieces that are more useful around the house like baskets and trays.”
You can shop by item or by cause – empowering women, fighting human trafficking, caring for widows and orphans, creating economic opportunities or providing educational opportunities.
“They’re all working to solve bigger issues in the community, and a lot of those are easy to group into different categories,” Emily said. “So empowering women globally is a huge effort, and we have a lot of partners who focus solely on that. Also when we first started, a lot of them were working to support victims coming out of human trafficking, rescue victims of human trafficking and provide jobs. Now we also have some on the preventative end, figuring out how to go into the communities where these girls are coming from and creating jobs there before they end up in the red light district.”
Strengthening Communities
Beginning in 2017 members of the Bought Beautifully team began taking trips to meet the partners and artisans they work with in person. They traveled to Haiti, and followed that up by going to Nicaragua and Costa Rica the following year. In the last few years they’ve traveled to Guatemala, Honduras and Bolivia, and also made trips to Peru.
“We know all of our partners, and we make a big effort to FaceTime with them and connect with them, but obviously getting to travel and see them in person is absolutely game changing for people who’ve never done that,” Emily said. “It also gives us a better understanding of how we can support them and the unique context where they live.”
Members of the team have been to Peru twice, once in 2019 and again last May. They traveled to Cochabamba, nestled in the Andean foothills, where they met Eldiberta, a woman who lived there.
Opportunities for women in the rural village where she lives are scarce, but after her daughter was born Eldiberta learned the baby would need medication for life due to an epilepsy diagnosis. Knowing this would fall on her shoulders, Eldiberta knew she had to find a way to make extra income in a way that would also let her care for her daughter.
She had heard about Llapanmaki, a local business that created and sold Peruvian weavings. So she traveled down the mountain with her daughter in tow, learning everything she could about the art. As her daughter grew older and heavier she knew the current situation couldn’t last and she persuaded them to let her bring blank tapestries back to her village to finish in her home.
Soon other women in Cochabamba began asking if they could help her do the work. It was around the same time Llapanmaki connected one of Bought Beautifully’s first partners Threads of Hope, which opened the door to a much larger market for selling their products in the U.S.
With support from Threads of Hope, Eldiberta established a women’s cooperative. Now she brings back loads of unfinished weavings strapped to her back for her cooperative to work on.
This work has expanded to include three cooperatives across four villages, providing substantial income for more than 50 families.
“When we get to go and meet people, you see we are part of each other’s stories,” Emily said. “It’s easy for us to forget that here, especially when we have so much and we can buy things from anywhere. But seeing faces and knowing how connected we can be is really powerful.”
In the time since their first visit they saw a great many changes to Eldiberta’s village including working toilets and a medical facility with a nurse.
“They created guinea pig farms, and in the last five years, they expanded from guinea pig farms to cows,” Emily said. “Our partners specifically helped the women get cows and receive animal husbandry training so they were equipped and ready to take care of the cows. It was really powerful for us to go and see a change in this community over five years.”
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Bought Beautifully in Sheridan features photos of many of the people from around the world who create the products sold in the store to help better connect customers to the mission of the nonprofit. (Courtesy Photo) -
Colin and Emily Betzler visit with master leatherworker Abraham in Bolivia. (Courtesy Photo) -
Christella Jean is employed through 2nd Story Goods in Haiti, a partner of Bought Beautifully. The job has enabled her family to buy their own home and support their children. (Courtesy Photo)
Plans For The Future
When the nonprofit started, the Betzlers just hoped to make a small difference in the world. Ten years later they’re thankful for the support they’ve received.
“We are online, but it’s mainly Wyoming and the Sheridan community that support us,” Emily said. “It’s just fun to see what we can do in a small town in Wyoming.”
Looking ahead to the coming decade, the Betzlers have a handful of goals, one of which is working with partners to help them grow not only product offerings but also programs such as professional development.
“We just wrapped up a big capital campaign that we launched this year, celebrating 10 years and looking ahead to help us broaden not only our abilities here at home, but also to do some strategic investments in 10 of our longest-term partners to help them reach the next level in some way, shape or form,” Colin said.
One of their objectives that is quickly becoming a reality is opening travel experiences to anyone in the community who wants to go. Up to this point their trips have been for small groups and included board members, volunteers and employees. This January when they travel to Guatemala that will change.
“It will be open to everyone, but our hope is that the customers who have supported us for the last 10 years will be the first to come and meet the people and see firsthand the impacts their purchases are making,” Emily said.
They also would like to expand to a second physical location in the next few years. Colin encourages people who have ideas for the nonprofit or would be interested in having a pop-up store in their community to reach out.
“If the mainstream went fair trade, then we’d close up shop, because it’s mission accomplished when pop culture is doing things at the fair-trade level,” Colin said. “There’s been a lot of strides that have been made through the years, but there’s still so much space in that market, and so much more that we can do that I think we’re doubling down to hopefully be around for another decade.”
