When someone gets sick, it can be difficult to know what to do for them. Should you bring flowers, food, a card? Jackson resident Kathleen Neiley is providing an answer to that question and employing rural women around the state with her new business Full Circle.
Quilts. The company creates custom, group funded t-shirt quilts for cancer patients, and its workforce will be made up of women in rural areas of Wyoming. Neiley told Wyoming Public Radio’s Caroline Ballard the idea came from her own experiences.
Kathleen Neiley said she is looking to employ older women with sewing skills living in remote areas of Wyoming as her seamstresses, especially those who are also caregivers.
“That’s one of the reasons I’m doing this,” said Neiley. “To allow people that are in these situations where they’re having to come out of the workforce to engage in elder care in the home, that they still have access to a way to supplement their income.”
Neiley said the number of seamstresses she employs will depend on how fast the company grows, but she hopes the number will eventually be in the hundreds. However many seamstresses there may be, Neiley said the work would be flexible.
“Somebody might be able to make one quilt a week, somebody might be able to make three quilts a week depending on what their time frame allows,” she said.
Neiley said she hopes her business could bring small manufacturing jobs back to Wyoming.
