Success STORIES

Inspiring Entrepreneurs

Boogaali is derived from two separate words: "Boo" from the last letters of the word bamboo and "gaali" from the "Ganda" word meaning bicycle.

Kasoma Noordin, Director of Boogaali Bikes Uganda, has a passion for bamboo--what he believes to be nature's perfect plant. Strong, light and durable, it can be used to create a wide variety of functional and beautiful products. It is all natural and easily renewable. When crafted into a bicycle, it helps promote an environmentally friendly and healthy lifestyle that reduces the number of vehicles clogging crowded roadways and helps improve air quality for all.

Kasoma learned the art of crafting bicycle frames with bamboo in vocational school in Kampala. He handcrafts each frame from hand-picked, mature bamboo stems, to exact specifications. Each frame is a beautiful, unique, highly functional work of art. His frames are not only beautiful, but provide an exceptional quality of ride that has amazing vibration dampening characteristics and incredible durability.

Kasoma's workshop has assembled over 2,000 bamboo bicycle frames, mostly for European customers. The bicycles haven't really caught on with the Ugandan people, who Kasoma says are not really bicycle riding people. But he is hopeful that more locals will enjoy the thrill of riding the bamboo bikes and that the bikes will become more affordable for the local people. 

Black Her-Story Matters

Artist Emma Craigen designed the "Black Her-Story Matters" t-shirt currently sold at Overflow Coffee Bar. The t-shirt is actually a screen printing of a piece of Emma's original artwork titled, "Grow from Your Roots, " a combination Black History Month/Women's History Month art piece critiquing and satirizing what is, or rather, what is not, taught in schools. This piece specifically highlights the history of Black women in America, which is even more overlooked, and therefore what Emma wanted to celebrate and emphasize. 

"The past few years of middle school, my adopted black sister has lamented and been frustrated by a lack of recognition, relevance, and realism in schools when it comes to Black History and current events. A group of multiracial middle schoolers don't just want to learn about the old white guys who wrote the constitution, they want to know the stories about people that look like them, too. It's time that curriculum was changed to reflect a full and diverse reality.

Black History Matters. Black Women Matter. Representation Matters. Especially in schools.

Model: my beautifully ferocious and ferociously beautiful budding social justice princess warrior little sister: Trinity"

~Emma Craigen

INSPIRING ENTREPRENEURS

Entrenuity's Angela Jackson lives an inspiring life and lives her life to inspire. Incorporating her love for business and community, Angela is currently utilizing her expertise as a business consultant/coach to develop and empower marginalized communities throughout Nairobi, Kenya. As a Certified StartingUp Now Facilitator, Angela is teaching the SUN curriculum to service and support startup organizations and entrepreneurs in multiple social enterprise efforts:

• Angela is currently teaching business classes at IJM--an organization that specializes in social services and recovery for victims of police brutality, unjust imprisonment, and survivors of sexual exploitation. IJM developed an aftercare plan that supports survivors with economic empowerment along with a fund to kick-start small enterprises. Angela assists IJM’s staff in providing practical business training to help these small businesses become self-sustainable. Angela works with the IJM staff so they can assist their clients in creating excellent business plans and equips them with the proper tools to coach their clients for success.

• Alongside an organization like IJM, Angela is passionate about working with HAART, an organization that raises awareness against human trafficking. Kenyans are trafficked as a result of child labor and exploitation. Men, women, and children are all subject to such heinous crimes. Angela equips and coaches survivors, supported by HAART, to recover and start their own businesses in the midsts of adversity and emotional trauma.

• Between her time teaching business classes to the staff of these organizations and helping in the recovery process of sex trafficking survivors, Angela volunteers her time at Christ Hope International, serving children and orphans affected by aids. Angela recognizes the importance of strengthening families and teaches business classes to both children and their parents. Angela uses simple life illustrations to teach children the importance of recognizing problems in their community and coming up with lasting solutions.

• As a strong and empowered women herself, Angela uses her business skillset to partner with Woman’s Hope, a community that provides the women of Kenya with relevant social-economic information to uplift their society. Angela helps nurture and cultivate a culture of strong female leaders, assisting them in developing strong and stable social enterprises.

Introducing Skyler Dees

Skyler Dees has always loved cooking. He started helping in the kitchen when he was just two years old. At age three, he nearly burned the house down trying to recreate some baked apples his Grandma had made. Skyler survived the mishap, continued cooking and realized as he got older that it was his passion. Recognizing he also had a gift for it, he decided to pursue it professionally.

In 2014, Skyler took part in the culinary training program at A Safe Haven, a North Lawndale nonprofit. He did well enough to get a job at the organization and worked there for two years, starting out as a cook and working his way up to kitchen manager.

In September 2016, Skyler became an instructor at Inspiration Kitchens, an East Garfield Park nonprofit that teaches culinary skills to the under-employed and under-resourced in order to help them get jobs. Around the same time, he was taking classes at North Lawndale's New Covenant Community Development Corporation's entrepreneurship center.

Skyler would eventually leverage the skills he gained during those years to strike out on his own. In September 2016, he quit his job to start his own catering company and hasn't looked back.

Skyler joined Moxe in 2018 for business coaching and assistance in business plan development. Skyler wants to create something "that's impactful for the community, a place where kids can walk in, can feel good about being there, and can have the chance to see a black business owner making it." He uses his culinary skills to draw people together around the table partly because he wants to encourage people to look inside their community "and see the assets ... to see Black women, men and youth as assets."

For information about his private chef/catering services, see www.skylerdees.com or contact: skyler@skylerdees.com  |  773-340-1619  

Barista on a Mission

A job becomes more than just a job when you approach it as a mission. For Barista Camellia Edwards, her mission is adding a little extra love to everything she does. Cam's mission made an impression on a customer one day who chose to give Overflow another try after previously deciding it wasn't a good fit. But after meeting and connecting with Cam, she kept coming back. She came back on busy mornings before work and let Cam brighten her day with a smile and some caffeine to keep her going. She came back after her mother died and let Cam be a bright spot during the dark season of grief. And she came back after the holidays to thank Cam with a hug and a gift. Cam was moved to tears by the lovely wrapped present and had to be talked into opening it, only to find herself shaken at the sight of two crisp, new 100 dollar bills and a handwritten thank you card. "Thank you for being such an incredible person and for being such a bright and shiny light."

Cam took her customer service to the next level. It was about more than just doing her job, it was about intentionally doing good, and it made a difference. That's the Overflow difference--and it came with an exceptional cup of coffee.

Black History Month 2018

Black History Month, initiated by Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week in 1926, was federally recognized by President Gerald Ford in 1976 and has been designated by every American president since as Black History Month and endorsed with a specific theme. It is observed in February to honor the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln, who were important in black American history. February is also significant for February 3, 1870 when black men were granted the right to vote by the passing of the 15th Amendment.