The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below. Check out our favorite stories from across the Voyage family.
Ashley LaRue 
I have always dreamed of becoming an author and to bring light and love into the world with my words, and hopefully help others on their journeys in this life, so when I was able to start working with the exceptional Fox Pointe Publishing company, my dreams literally became reality. Read more>>
Michael Headlee 
For more than 30 years, I’ve had the privilege of helping people find their way out of pain and back into their lives. But my journey to becoming a chiropractor—and the journey that continues today—is about much more than chiropractic. Early in my career, I was fascinated by the human body and its ability to heal. Read more>>
Casey Swanson 
My path into photography wasn’t necessarily something I had mapped out from the beginning. Before becoming a full-time photographer, I was a hairstylist and salon owner, and while the medium was completely different, I think I was always drawn to work that allowed me to connect with people, create something meaningful, and make someone feel seen. Read more>>
Aliza Thompson 
I have been an esthetician for 23 years and a Reiki Master/Teacher for 7 yeas. Over the span of my career I have worked in a resort, day spa and salons and med spas. I have come to realize that in an industry that is very polarized by holistic treatments vs. medical that they seem to work best done together. Read more>>
Leah Beack 
It was fall of 2020, and we were heading into the first holidays of the pandemic. There was a lot of confusion and anger everywhere I looked, and I was curious if there was a healthy way to release the pent up anger and anxiety we as a collective were feeling so I Googled ‘Rage Room’ and was surprised to learn that these establishments existed! Read more>>
The Modern Era by Nick Pelowski 
For 15 years, The Modern Era has been serving up loud, fast, hook-heavy punk rock with enough attitude to shake the walls and enough melody to stick in your head for days. Born in Minneapolis and raised on stages, dive bars, clubs, and festivals, the band has built its reputation the old-fashioned way: one show at a time. Read more>>
Cousin Christopher 
Music has always been a part of my life. I grew up in the Twin Cities, but also spent time in New Mexico, D.C. and Miami. Growing up in a Haitian American household, I was always around different styles of music and cultures. Read more>>
Autumn Gilliam 
I started my business getting friends together to taste wine blind. We realized that our views on wine were pretty narrow. It was fun to get together with friends and try new things while being completely honest with what we thought of the wines. I took a deep dive and decided to educate myself more. Read more>>
Ja’ki Hurst 
From deciding to run away at the age of 14, to battling thoughts of suicide, spending seven days and seven nights in a mental hospital, and eventually being diagnosed with depression and anxiety… taking you guys back to where I started would probably call for a comfy couch, some tissues, and maybe two peach margaritas to confuse our emotions. Read more>>
Brodie Perro 
I play guitar in the band Nectarous. We started writing music together during the Summer of 2020 while most of the world was shut down due to the pandemic. Once things opened back up, we have been performing live and releasing music ever since. Read more>>
Jamie Schwaba 
I am mixed-media artist working primarily in ink, watercolor, oil pastels, soft pastels, and acrylic paint markers. The arts have always been an important part of my life, but as an adult I didn’t have a lot of time to create between family and work life until the pandemic happened. Read more>>
Colleen Fernandez 
Colleen Fernandez is the founder of Bound Nolo, an experiential retail and jewelry brand based in Minneapolis’ North Loop. A native of Hopkins, Minnesota, Colleen earned her degree in communications from Arizona State University before beginning her career in advertising in New York City, where she met her husband, Jonathan. Read more>>
Jackie Hill 
I started Lakes Area Residential Cleaning in 2021. In the beginning, I created a Facebook page, made flyers, and posted locally to get my name out there and find my first customers. I built the business step by step, and what started as a side hustle has grown into something much bigger. Read more>>
Janet Haugan 
Peggy Merrill & Janet Haugan opened boréal in May 2019 after many years of buying & selling lovely things for the iconic Bibelot Shops. boréal, meaning of the North or from a cold climate, has a Scandinavian sensibility that stems from Peggy’s travels in Scandinavia when she was young and Janet’s Swedish heritage. Read more>>
Kristin Dieng 
I became an artist after the life I had spent years building became impossible for me to continue. I have always been an explorer at heart. From a young age, I was fascinated by the enormous diversity of the world: its people and cultures, history and ideas, landscapes and beautiful places, and all the different ways human beings create and live. Read more>>
Roshini Rajkumar 
I started my business, Roshini Multi Media, in early 2006 after about a decade in television news. My past life as a news reporter took me to these markets: Fargo, Des Moines, Nashville, Minneapolis, Detroit. More than twenty years since I left TV news, my previous career truly informs all that I do with my clients and as I continue my own media work. Read more>>
Hayden Ehrisman 
I got my first job when I was freshly 16 years old at Dairy Delite in 2017. This job quickly lead to more than just scooping ice cream seasonally. It led to me being a shift leader, manager, and now co-owner along side my mom, Gina Ehrisman. Read more>>
Rebeka Ndosi
Maji ya Chai is the name of the area in Tanzania where generations of Ndosis have lived. The name means “water like tea” because of the reddish brown tint of the water due to the mineral-rich soil. Located in the foothills of Mt. Meru, my family members have been mountain farmers there for multiple generations. Read more>>
Young Artist 612 
I started rapping back in the mid 90s when I heard my favorite Mc 2 Pac Shakur. The late 90s I really took my craft seriously when Cash Money Records and No Limit hit the seen. I felt confident enough to chase my vision. I love the Hip hop community. Read more>>
Alexandra Yaszemski 
When people ask me what I do, I’ve got a list for them: I’m a neuroscientist, an artist, a full-time caregiver for my aging parents, and a dog mom to the best big dog (hi, Bruce). Read more>>
Christine Ciganovich 
The story of the Davis Food Co-op has never been the story of one person. By definition a cooperative is a group of people working together to achieve a goal or solve a common problem. That is how the Co-op started more than 50 years ago—as a buying club of ten households meeting in living rooms and splitting up orders in each other’s garages. Read more>>
Artika Tyner 
I am an artist and community historian. This vocational journey combines urgent need and deep personal calling. Inspired by Toni Morrison’s words: “This is precisely the time when artists go to work,“ I believe we are in a moment that demands creative, community-centered solutions. Read more>>
Vanessa Miles 
My dreams have always been really vibrant and colorful. I wake up in the middle of the night to describe them in a notebook I keep at the side of my bed, and to this day I still look to my notebook for inspiration. When I was a kid things were rough and I’d often go into my imagination to escape. Read more>>
Monique Kai 
I started learning how to braid and do hair as a little girl. My mom got me a giant bratz doll as a gift one year and told me to use it and to practice my braiding skills, from there it was game on. Read more>>
Janelle Wilson 
Around 2011, my grandfather (who frequented flea markets) brought home a stained glass window, and asked me to repair it. I had no experience in stained glass, but he offered to pay for me to learn, so I began taking classes at Glass Endeavors, a shop nearby run by John and Zoi Sandy. Read more>>
Naomi Schwenke 
My journey to founding Mosaic Integrative Health is rooted in a deep, evolving commitment to treating the whole person. Beginning my career in the mental health field in 2007 with an MA in counseling and psychological services, I started in case management. Read more>>
Melissa Jean
I was always a creative spirit, and at 14yrs old I fell in love with oil painting. Thus began a lifetime obsession of creating art. At 16 yrs old, I lost the vision in my left eye, losing my depth perception completely. I had to readjust how I gauged the distance of what I saw in front of me every day. Read more>>
Gina Ramsey
As an entrepreneur and business owner, I have found there is no “normal” day. Rather, when I wake up, I am prepared to hustle. My days consists of endless juggling of tasks and to dos. Thank goodness for the creator of the post it notes, or I probably wouldn’t make it through.
Besides working full-time as a social worker, I also juggle managing the bookkeeping side of our Superior Ceramic Coatings and manage my writing business. Just when I have my list ready, something from life decides to pop up- and then I find myself shifting gears and reprioritizing. Read More>>
