Stitching the Future of Sustainability with Sew Valley

We chose to start Sew Valley as a nonprofit because we are mission driven. We exist to help provide resources and space and equipment. So we wanna help you build and grow your product and see it thrive. So we do have a mission behind what we're doing. But because the industry has been offshored for so long, we also have to be a nonprofit.

Because think about a t shirt that you bought or you got from a charity drive. That t shirt cost $3 for the purchaser. Who's paying the price for that t shirt? Not the person who bought it. Most certainly the person who made it.

And that's because they were probably paid less than a dollar an hour to make it. And because we provide living wages in an industry that doesn't exist in this country, basically, it helps us. It helps subsidize what we're doing and keep our mission focused and moving forward.

Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub is more than a startup accelerator. We are a hub for social entrepreneurs, community, organizations, and companies with a mission to drive social changes. Flywheel helps founders grow and scale their enterprises that have both a financial return and a positive social impact. We call it the double bottom line. Social impact businesses include those that help increase access to education and health care, those that provide training and help grow our workforce, those that promote equality and sustainability.

My name is Joan Kaup, host of On The Fly! Today, we are talking with three bright and brave women who are the power behind Sew Valley. That is sew like stitching, s e w Valley. Please join me in welcoming Shailah Maynard, co founder and CEO, Madeleine Misleh, and Aubrey Krekler, co directors of operations. Hi.

Hi.

Hello.

Thanks for having us.

So no pun intended. Let's begin at the very beginning. Shayla, just tell our listeners all about So Valley. How, when, why did you get started? What is your mission, your purpose, your products, services?

Give us a spiel.

Sure. Sew Valley is a seven year old organization. We were formed in 2017 by myself and my partner, Rosie Kovacs. We are a nonprofit. We are a sustainably focused garment factory, sample room, and incubator space for apparel brands and individuals interested in the sewn trades.

So Rosie and I saw a desperate need for resources, training, and equipment for individuals working in the apparel space, whether it's people looking for jobs or people looking to build or grow their enterprise. So we built Sew Valley from the ground up. We're in the West End. We offer a variety of things such as cut and sew services, which means sample development and small batch production on your apparel products. We also rent studio space and rent our equipment by the hour, like a makerspace model, and we host educational workshops.

Well, sewing is a lost art in a lot of ways. So before we get too far into the conversation, tell our listeners right now how can they find you, what's your social media, all that jazz.

Our website is sewvalley.org, sew valley dot org. Find us on social media at sew valley, email us info@sewvalley.org, and sign up for our newsletter. We're always announcing new and fun programs and workshops and would love for anyone to get involved.

The company is seven years old, but why do this? Why be compelled? Why take the risks?

Well, like I said, Rosie and I saw a void in resources for apparel designers and individuals looking for work in the apparel industry here locally. She and I both had our own separate businesses that were in the apparel space or apparel adjacent space prior to this. And it's really hard to build your small enterprise without a community and resources available to you. So we both thought, because we have experienced it, if there were resources available to us when we were just getting going, perhaps it could have helped us grow. We were lucky enough to receive support from the Haile Foundation, who gave us a seed grant to let us see if our suspicions were correct.

And pretty much right after we started, the phone started ringing, and it hasn't stopped ringing.

Oh, that's so wonderful to Congratulations. And to keep up with all this busyness, you have co directors of operation, co directors. So, Maddie, Aubrey, how does that work? How do you share that?

Yeah. So it's definitely an interesting role that I feel like a lot of people don't see. But SoValley is quite small. We have, I believe, 12 employees currently. And Maddie and I were lucky enough to start with SoValley pretty much from the beginning.

We both started working there or being involved within the first year of Sew Valley's founding. So we have been lucky enough to be able to take part in the building of Sew Valley alongside Shayla and Rosie at the time. And as we've evolved, me and Maddie both really enjoyed figuring out a process. Sew Valley is a unique business in that there isn't a model to follow. Small batch is a totally different realm than normal production of 500 units of something.

It's truly been figuring it out as we went. And Maddie and I, personality wise, just work really well together, which is also so great to have happened and rare. And so through the years, as we were building processes, as we were sewing ourselves on production, and then helping lead production, and then taking on clients, and then doing development for them, as we've been doing all these things, we got into a flow where we can share responsibilities. At the moment, I lead the majority of clients through the entire process from development through production, or sometimes they're only developing with us or they're only producing with us. But as we take on clients, me and Maddie sort out their needs and what their flow of development or their flow of production is going to look like, and then we split responsibilities in that way.

It's been lovely to be able to do that. Again, we just work really well together.

I think we have different strengths. So Aubrey's very organized and a good communicator, and then I know what's going on with pattern making and how to put things together. So I feel like we complement each other really well with how to handle all the different projects. So just split task approach of you do what you're good at, I'll do what I'm good at, and we'll meet at the end.

And the the client benefits from all that – From all that talent, from the strengths of both of you. So it's not like I have the first shift, you have the second shift. You guys are really working lock step, side by side to serve the client. Sounds like Sew Valley is very client centered.

Absolutely. I think that's what's unique about us from other factories. We care that the client is educated on what we're doing and that they understand why they're paying whatever they're paying for any step of the way. There's such a lack of connection between how our product is actually made. And we get a lot of clients who have never been in this industry and don't know what to expect or what to do or anything, we have the unique opportunity to guide them in the proper way to create a sustainable brand, not only environmentally but for longevity, which is really unique.

Shailah, let's hop on that word sustainability. It's come up a couple of times already. What does that mean to you, and how does Sew Valley embrace it in practice?

Sustainability is a huge part of our ethics, both on the environmental side and on the social side. As you may or may not know, the apparel industry is quite problematic. Most manufacturing has been offshored for many decades, and that means garment workers are paid pennies on the dollars. They're subjected to unsafe and unhealthy working conditions. So on the social side, we pride ourselves by providing safe and comfortable work environment and paying our workers a living wage and proving that apparel manufacturing can be done in a sustainable and thoughtful way, and it can be a sustainable career path for anyone looking to expand their skills.

But also, the environmental impacts of the apparel industry are also quite problematic. The industry is the second largest pollutant on Earth. Billions of garments are manufactured per year, and also billions of garments are taken to landfill per year. So we also aim to prove that you can create an apparel product with sustainability in mind. So that means what Maddie and Aubrey do is they work with their clients on the front end to help them think about what they're making and the impact that their apparel products may have on the environment.

And so they may design with sustainability in mind, something like designing a product that can be easily altered if your body or your weight changes over time, or minimizing your waste when designing the product so that there's not as much fabric waste. We also are launching our Zero Waste program. We were very lucky to receive a grant from Hamilton County Resource in support of fabric shredding and heat pressing equipment so that we can solve our fabric scrap waste problem that we've been trying to solve since our formation. And what that means is when you're cutting out a pattern piece out of a big bolt of fabric, it leaves a lot of excess scraps. Think about it as baking cookies.

You cut your cookies out, there's excess scrap that goes away. That's the exact same thing with fabric. So most of those scraps are quite small and they're unusable. So we will now be able to process our fabric scraps through the shredding equipment and turn it into a reusable fabric fill or an alternative to like a polyfill for upholstery projects, sometimes for recycled insulation, and various other things. And we encourage everyone to come check us out online and maybe in person.

So you have earned the 513 Green Workplace Certificate from Hamilton County. Was that intentional, or was that just like a lucky byproduct because you were so invested in this philosophy? How did that happen?

I believe we were originally introduced to 513 Hamilton County Resource through an inquiry about, I believe it was bags, or maybe it was tote bags. We just kept the conversation open, and when they introduced that, I was considered a sustainability manager and so was like, easy. We can easily meet all of these needs or guidelines that they had set out for it. It was more of data collection and proving the things that we were doing on paper.

Well, congratulations. Thank goodness you have a co director, so you had time to invest in that. Exactly. Exactly. So, Maddie, you talked about cutting out patterns.

Shayla, you talked about scraps when you cut out patterns. Let's go back to your talent for cutting out patterns. Where did you learn that? Are you trained in a college or, wow, it's something that grandma taught me and I never forgot or a combination?

It's a combination, but I graduated from DAAP from the fashion program. A lot of the people that work for us came from DAAP as well. So there's a lot of training in pattern making and sampling. And then we're lucky to have the co op program from UC and get to go out and experience all kinds of different jobs. And I just really took a liking to the technical side of things and how to engineer garments and putting them together.

Sew Valley has been a perfect place for me to do that.

The students from DAAP, do they do internships with you? Do you hire them? Do you further their education? What is that relationship?

Yes, we do hire DAAP students through the co op program. We would say on average probably twice a year, which has been really great for us and for the student to gain hands on experience in the production line on industrial equipment. And we think that it really contributes towards their education. And we're also grateful for the help and people who are interested in sewing and know how to do it. And we can just say, Okay, well, get to work.

Do you do training for just general public? I mean, can any of our listeners call you and come in and take classes?

Absolutely. So our educational offering, we look at as reaching outside of our echo chamber to get more people to know about us, but also interested in the textile and apparel space. So we welcome anybody to sign up for our classes. We announce classes quarterly, anything from intro to industrial sewing, which teaches you how to use industrial sewing equipment compared to using a domestic sewing machine, which most people use at home. We also have the basic techniques.

So even if you don't know how to sew, you can learn in that class. And then we'll have a level two version of that, where it's a little bit more intermediate. And then we do other classes, such as DIY alterations, which is exactly what it sounds like. You have a garment. It needs to be altered.

Come in. We'll show you how to alter it. And then you leave with the garment fitting exactly how you want it to fit and the skill to learn to do it again. And then other fun classes, like natural dyeing, etcetera.

Aubrey, because you follow the client from the concept when they reach you to when they leave with whatever they want to leave with, is there a profile for, this is my typical client. I ask because oftentimes in coaching a flywheel, if we can identify your favorite best client from a psychographic demographic perspective, then it's like, oh, I want more of that. So do you have a profile of a typical client, or are they all uniquely different?

What I think is great about Sew Valley is that they're all incredibly different. I would say we have some categories of clients. But again, for example, a category would be clients who don't know anything about the industry and maybe have had an idea for a long time and they finally want to pursue it. Those clients range so much because we could get someone who maybe has a finance background. Everyone's brain is so different when you transition it to a creative endeavor, which is great to learn how different people work.

It's very much communicating with them and learning the client themselves aside from just their product.

Trying to interpret their ideas to a real life thing.

Absolutely. And then we also have a range of clients who are local companies who just need some R & D work. They just need someone that's close to them that can help guide them in the right way or get out some prototypes to see what's working and what's not. And then we also have a clientele that is maybe existing brands, but they're focused on sustainability within their fabrics and the way that they're produced and all of their materials. So a lot of those companies come to us, and they're like, we haven't been able to find a factory that will share with us and let us come in while you're producing.

So a lot of those clients really are driven towards Sew Valley because we're happy to we're so transparent about our whole process. And we're happy to send them back their scrap or divide it. Some clients, we give them back their bigger scrap because they have mending kits that they sell with their projects. We care a little bit more than some other factories in a really great way.

We talked a little bit, and you have mentioned two different grants that you've gotten since you started. Shailah, you set this company up as a 501(c)(3), not as an LLC. Why did you choose that? If you had to do it over again, would you do it again?

We chose to start Sew Valley as a nonprofit because we are mission driven. We exist to help provide resources and space and equipment. So we want to help you build and grow your product and see it thrive. So we do have a mission behind what we're doing. But in another answer is because the industry has been offshored for so long, we also have to be a nonprofit.

Because think about a t shirt that you bought or you got from a charity drive. That t shirt cost $3 for the purchaser. Who's paying the price for that t shirt? Not the person who bought it, most certainly the person who made it. And that's because they were probably paid less than $1 an hour to make it.

And because we provide living wages in an industry that doesn't exist in this country, basically, it helps us. It helps subsidize what we're doing and keep our mission focused and moving forward. We hope one day that our service oriented arm can become self sustaining and become its own for profit LLC with the profits funneling back into the nonprofit side, and that's like a long term goal. That's the vision down the road. If we had to do it again this way, absolutely, because we've had so much support from our funders and our community members, and it's really enabled us to thrive and grow and provide jobs for our extremely talented team.

Like Aubrey said, there's 12 of us, but we need more. So hoping to continue to grow and expand our offering and rebuild this industry here locally.

Excellent. So are you comfortable telling us what is your annual income, your annual budget, and how much of that comes from grants, and how much of that comes from actual sales and revenue?

Sure. Our annual budget is roughly $650,000. It has grown each year based on demand. And for the percentage, I would say 75% revenue and 25% grants and fundraise dollars. So we are very fortunate that we are able to bring in revenue from our services to help support our budget.

And we started with a budget of $25,000 in our first year, so we have grown.

Things have evolved in seven years. Nonprofits have advisory boards, which LLCs do not. Talk to me a little bit about your advisory boards. Are they mentors, coaches? Are they meddlers? What is a piece of advice you've gotten from a board member or a mentor that has been of value?

So our board of directors is really a wonderful resource for us, obviously. In the early days, there were only a few of us, me, Rosie, Aubrey, Maddie, and maybe some co ops coming in and out. And we said yes to every inquiry that came in the door. Can you make this lace bra? Can you make this heavy duty bag?

Can you make my child's clothing line? We said yes to everything. And the best advice we got from some other zone manufacturers in Detroit, they said, you need to say no to some things. And you need to figure out your zone. Where are your specialties, and where do they lie?

Because most manufacturers in any space are really good at one thing and specialize in one thing. And in the apparel space, that's extremely broad. So an apparel manufacturer who makes denim is very different than manufacturer who makes athletic wear. So figure out where your specialties lie, what equipment you have to enable you to do that and go that direction. So now we still say yes to most things, but we stay in the middle zone.

We do only adults, men's and women's ready to wear. We do not do super lightweight, delicate silks or laces, and we stay away from heavy duty hardware accessories like backpacks and stuff like that, so apparel focused only.

Speaking of clients, congratulations. The Cincinnati Symphony Pops, you have made all those red jackets. Tell me how that came to be. And I understand you made the effort to fit every musician individually as if they were athletes because of the way they move. The one playing the violin's arms moving a whole lot differently than the one playing the trumpet or what have you. So I am most fascinated by that contract and where it came from and how you fulfilled it.

Back in 2019, the CSO, Symphony Orchestra, put out a request for proposals. They were looking to update the pops musicians' jackets to have more of a contemporary feel, but also keep in mind the functionality and the engineering of the garment so that it fits and breathes better for a musician who is sitting under hot stage lighting for multiple hours a night. It seemed that there was a lot of focus in the performing arts for updating musicians' jackets nationally. So it was a really exciting proposal that came to us, and we thought, Okay, let's send them a portfolio, and let's send them our application, and see what they think. And we were very lucky that they selected us.

We knew that we could do it. But also, sometimes you get really ambitious, and you think, yeah, we can make 200 tailored jackets. Sure, problem. Maddie and Aubrey really led the project once it got going.

We started in 2019, and actually Rosie Kovacs started with the design portion of getting feedback, making some changes, etcetera. And we really started with athletic inspired clothing. In the beginning, we knew that the fabric had to have some movement in it. It couldn't be just a poly or something. And then, of course, lovely COVID hit, and there was a pause.

So then we kind of restarted and had a better sense of guidance just because, as a small company, we had already grown so much within a very short period of time and kind of went back to the drawing board a bit, and kind of better merged an athletics inspired jacket with more of the traditional pops jacket, and found a lovely middle ground of having a fabric with some stretch in it, but it had structure to it. So you wouldn't know it had stretch from afar. Only the musicians would be able to feel that. And then we did a lot of design work to figure out the best fit and how to adjust for the musicians.

Yeah. We did a lot of work on the fit and for all the different types of musicians. Like you said, the the violin or the trumpet, they all have to move their arms in such a different way, and a standard suit coat is you know, you're meant to just kind of stand there and not move around a whole lot. So we really had to rebuild a suit jacket to be used for movement in all types of different ways and to accommodate the the different things that each musician needs. And during the fitting process, we had all of the jackets come out for the first time, and the musicians put them on. And you could tell that they hadn't ever been fit for a jacket before. So it was really great to be able to give them the experience of, well, maybe we should take it in a little bit here and, you know, do you need the sleeves shortened?

Do you need them longer? Like, what what is gonna make this jacket work best for you? It was really special to be able to build that out for each specific musician and have control over the whole process because a lot of the times when we're designing something and we produce it, we don't see the product at the end of the day. So it was really, really cool to see the product on the people, make sure it fits perfect, and, you know, make sure that they're happy performing on stage.

Well, they're beautiful on stage. How many did you make?

I believe the final number was 187...ish.

It feels right.

Feels right.

It feels right. How did you weave sustainability into this project?

I think a lot of that had to do with the development and production of it. We actually didn't end up producing because it was a tailored jacket. So we did all development and then worked with a company in New York to make the final jackets. So being just adamant about what materials do we really need, what are the exact yields for all of this fabric, How can we do this in an efficient way, meaning least waste possible? How can we think about each jacket, each of the parts of the jacket, to create less waste?

And so a lot of that has to do with production cutting and the markers created and your yield that you get on a marker to get less fabric waste. So I think that was a big part of it.

Well, that was a very big win, I would think. It looks like it to me. Absolutely. So just for fun, how do you celebrate your wins? What do you like to do?

Is there a...

We have a little bell.

Wow! There is an official win. Okay.

Rosie, I think I don't know. She went to the thrift store and found this, like, little, like, orders up bell ding. Yes. And so at the end of a production production job, job, when it's all done, someone gets to ring the bell, and then we all cheer.

It started as a joke, but I I personally really enjoy

You know what? People think that the celebration has to involve champagne and an expensive gala. And no, really, a thrift shop bell will do it.

Yeah. That's all you need. Exactly.

I love that. What else would you want to tell other social entrepreneurs?

If you have a suspicion that you're onto something and there's a need for what you're doing, go for it. Do it. We exist in an industry that does not exist, and we are still alive and kicking, and we are growing, and we really hope to continue to grow. And we have some exciting projects coming up in the next few years. So you can do it.

It's definitely not going to be easy, but that doesn't mean it's not worth the effort. And if you find your true community and amazing, amazing teammates, then anything is possible. So thank you for having us.

That's a perfect way to wrap it up. Thank you so much for sharing your your time, your expertise, your stories, and go forward and ring that bell.

You so much. Thank you.

Thank you.

On the Fly! is produced by Joey Scarillo with music composed by Ben Hammer. Recorded at 1819 Innovation Hub in Cincinnati, Ohio, courtesy of the University of Cincinnati.

Ding.