02. Sewn Goods Collaborative: Immigrants to Businesspeople

In this episode, we meet Anne Whitlock and Lauren Caldarera who helped create the Sewn Goods Collaborative, a group of immigrants who turned the need for face masks during the pandemic into a growing business in Houston.

 

Connect Community:  

Connect Community is a place-based non-profit that takes a holistic approach to community development in the Gulfton/Sharpstown neighborhood of Houston, TX. Serving a majority immigrant and refugee population, Connect Community works alongside residents, best-in-class partners and local stakeholders, to amplify voices, spark innovation, obtain resources, and accelerate human potential.  

  

Sewn Goods:  

Sewn Goods is a collective of small batch manufacturers, non-profits, educational institutions and local sewists that came together in the wake of a pandemic to address a public health crisis. Sewn Goods members pivoted from their traditional product Iines and, with the help of local talent, produced over 70,000 masks to keep neighbors, frontline and healthcare workers safe with high quality reusable cloth masks.   

Since then, the need for locally made sewn goods has increased. Sewn Goods is now investing in the upskilling and training of local talent and working with several small batch manufacturers to meet the needs of a growing soft goods market in Houston.