MARQUETTE, Mich. — Customers of the Knit-N-Purl in Marquette are used to seeing store owner Paula Schwenke arranging patterns, pricing yarn and helping patrons with complicated knitting projects.
But over the past year, they've seen a new employee in their midst. Marie Moisio has become a fixture of the store as well, and her employment situation is anything but ordinary.
Moisio is working for yarn.
"It makes me tear up sometimes to talk about it," Moisio said. "I'm just so impressed that someone would (let me) do that."
Moisio's story began two years ago when her daughter, Sarah, and son-in-law, Mike, decided to adopt a child after discovering they were unable to have kids on their own.
Hoping to begin their family with a new baby, they chose to adopt internationally, the cost of which can be extremely high.
Moisio said she wanted to do something to help defray that cost and her husband gave her the idea of selling the purses she normally made as gifts.
Filled with energy at the thought of being able to help her daughter start a family, Moisio went to the Knit-N-Purl, looking for yarn for her first purse. What she found was that it was going to be difficult to make good-quality purses and still keep her prices low.
Seeing that Schwenke was running a business on her own, Moisio decided to present her with a creative idea.
"Every dime I make here, I'll buy yarn," she said, to which Schwenke agreed. "From that developed a pretty outstanding relationship."
With that deal in place, Moisio was able to make and sell more than 60 purses priced from $20 to $45, helping her pass the halfway point in her goal of raising $2,000 for the adoption.
Schwenke "was with me every step of the way," Moisio said.
And Schwenke doesn't limit her involvement in the community to just what happens inside her own store, though she does allow several local craft groups to meet in her store for free. She said as a business owner, she has a responsibility to be deeply involved in the community.
"That's a service of my business," Schwenke said. "You have to be a bigger part of the community."
Every year for the Special Olympics, she offers discounted yarn to be used in the scarves knitted for each area represented. She also provides discounted fabric used in the prayer shawls made by the members of St. Michael Catholic Church and offers space in her store for local crafters to sell their products.
Schwenke even takes custom orders from area residents looking for a specific item. People can call the store, tell her what they'd like, and she presents the idea to people in the various craft groups who frequent her store, one of whom can take on the project.
"I try to promote locally made projects. They have a place here to showcase their stuff," Schwenke said, adding that it's important to her to buy local products.
Moisio's purses are still for sale inside the Knit-N-Purl, located at 1010 W. Washington St., and she'll be continuing her fundraising efforts through the spring.
Information from: The Mining Journal, http://www.miningjournal.net