The first Women Owned Business Market took place Sunday at The Barn 1880, 2076 N. CR 100E, Warsaw.
Lauren Klusman, director of marketing and communications at the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce, said there were 27 vendors of women-owned businesses in Kosciusko County. They wanted every women-owned business to be welcome at the event. There is a Women in Business Committee at the Chamber, so the event was hosted by them.
The Barn 1880 is owned by Amanda and Jon Scroggs, so “we wanted to use a venue that was women-owned, and so that is one of the main reasons we picked it. And also, Amanda was having a market last weekend, so we were like, ‘Hey, do you want to do two in a row?’ So, yeah, they were awesome and they helped sponsor the event,” Klusman said.
There was some live music at Sunday’s event. Klusman said there’s lots of vendors, so the event was mostly shopping, “so we have quite a few boutiques here, lots of the ones from downtown are here,” there were a lot of bakeries, so people could find a lot of food, clothes, beauty supplies and more.
“In the Women in Business Committee that we have, we had a meeting earlier this year and we said, ‘Hey, we really want to have an event with our committee.’ Because we were having lunches with women in business, we really wanted to hold an event to celebrate our women in business. So it was a collaborative idea throughout one of those meetings that came up with this idea,” Klusman said.
Vendors were able to register for the event on the Chamber website and the Chamber actually sold out of booth space, so Klusman said they had to cut registration off about a week and a half ago, “which is awesome for our very first one. We were just impressed with how many people wanted to come out and set up at our event.”
She said she hopes people who don’t know about some of the vendors at Sunday’s event can learn about those businesses at the event. The vendors set up early so they could go around and see other booths and get to know other women-owned businesses in the area.
Klusman said the Chamber hopes to have the Women Owned Business Market annually and for it to grow.
“You never know with your first event how it’s going to go, but we’ve had awesome traction with promoting on social media and had billboards up, so it’s been everywhere,” she said.
Sarah Wordhouse, of Word House Books, said she was asked to join the event. She is part of the Chamber and it was a good opportunity. Since opening her business in November, she has been trying to join as many women-led events as possible, so when this opportunity came up, “of course I had to do it. And it’s been so great and so pretty. It’s probably one of the best put-together markets I’ve been to so far.”
Wordhouse hopes Sunday’s event helps her get the word out about her business as she’s in “a hidden location,” since she’s in the Carpet Depot building by the roundabout in Winona Lake and “not everyone knows about it.”
Danielle Henerson, an international board certified lactation consultant with Milk Guide, said Milk Guide has several subcontractors and they all have their own identities. Consultants are a private practice, so they do home visits and visit with moms and help with things like latching issues, help mom with milk supplies, “anything moms need.”
Henderson said she wanted to be part of Sunday’s event to bring awareness to the community and to tell people Milk Guide was in the community. She hopes being part of the event will help with getting the word out and connecting with more families and bringing more care.
Esmeralda Martinez, with Lala’s Piñata Boutique, said people can customize piñatas to fit the theme of their party with her business. They offer sizes from 8 inches to 36 inches for piñatas. There are 2D and 3D piñatas.
Martinez said they wanted to be part of Sunday’s event because it was a local event. Lala’s Piñata Boutique is in Warsaw and they want to get more known in the area to see if people would like piñatas and to introduce people to piñatas if they’ve never heard of them before.
Martinez hopes to bring more people in and introduce them to what piñatas can do for their parties.