Today we’d like to introduce you to Kelsie + Kristen.
Hi Kelsie + Kristen, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We started Decluttering and organizing people’s homes as professional organizers together in 2019. We wanted to bring our donations to a good home. We didn’t want to just drop them off anywhere or throw the donations away. It was very important to us and our clients.
Kelsie kept getting nudges (from God) to volunteer at a domestic violence shelter. The thoughts would not go away and eventually she decided to become a volunteer at a shelter in Eagan, MN. She had to do a background check and she was the first volunteer they allowed after Covid. The shelter needed a major overhaul of decluttering and organization. Kelsie asked Kristen to please come and help, and she could not do this alone. Kristen became a volunteer as well, and we completely transformed the shelter from top to bottom. We brought tons from our jobs—clothing, decor, toys, books, PlayStations, tv, air hockey table, anything and everything to make it feel more like home.
Eventually, after 8 months we felt like it was time to move on from the shelter, but we still wanted to raise money for things that we wanted to buy for the shelter. We thought—🧐 we need to rent a space so we can sell these good items we get from our organizing jobs.
As we were driving in our van “sprinkle”, (yes we named her and she’s part of the team) and praying about a space we could rent, we saw a license plate that said “ASK MIKE.” We both looked at eachother in wonder and asked “Do you know a Mike?” “NO” “Do you know a Mike? Maybe our husbands will know what it means!”
Kristen got home and set her keys on the counter and her husband was getting a call from “Mike” She was taken a back—and jumped and said “who is that!??” To her husband. He explained that it was Mike from high school. They barely ever talk. Maybe once a year.
Kristen told Kelsie about the call and Kelsie wondered if Kristen asked Mike about the “space to rent.” Kristen said that she did not ask him and that would be super weird and forward to ask someone that!
A little later we ended up making a Facebook post asking anyone if they knew of a space we could rent. Kristen tagged Mike in it. He responded, “call me, I have a place”.
So we meet with the shop owner he knew of and we were offered the storefront free while we got things fixed up and ready. The place needed a major facelift, and we didn’t have any funds. That’s when the miracles started happening. We were able to paint, get flooring, tables, and everything we needed for a store. One by one we were getting ready.
We opened and the community really rallied around us. We quickly needed to expand to a larger spot, so we moved down the street and did renovations there as well. Now we are a 2,000 sq ft upscale second hand nonprofit boutique that raises money for domestic violence shelters all across Minnesota.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has been rocky, but God has always provided. We’ve had challenges staffing our store with volunteers and have had to cover shifts ourselves, maintaining enough inventory, but without risk there’s no reward. The more we have to work at the store, the less we were able to work our decluttering job to get inventory. We’ve also ran into permit issues to bring our stores public bathroom up to ADA code, potentially costing us up to $20,000. That is definitely an expense we weren’t anticipating.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Grace & Glory by Peaceful Life?
We specialize in setting atmospheres (as professional organizers – our organizing business is called Peace Life Organizing Solutions), so our store is known as a place of comfort, beauty, and fun. We have brand name clothing and items for very low cost. We are most proud to be a beautiful affordable place people can come to feel loved and seen! We pray for people, shop with people, and just support them.
We also give back to the community. We’ve given clothing to the shelter in town, rice county jail, the local food shelf, pregnancy options, and the DAV. We also give vouchers to the food shelf (Community Action Center) for women to shop at our store with $100. We recently heard a testimony of a lady who was in hard times and received a voucher/gift certificate due to getting a job and her boss said she wasn’t dressed professionally enough. She was scared and embarrassed to use the voucher but did it anyway. She was met with love and compassion, and now she’s the director of the company!
So our brand is love. We are proud of that.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
When you walk by faith everything could be seen as a risk in the eyes of most. We don’t know how things will work out but we do it anyway. We take risks that we are called to take, if that makes sense. But naturally we aren’t huge risk takers.
Pricing:
- Average shirt is around $7-$9
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Graceandglorymn.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19jsiBsaMS/?mibextid=wwXIfr
