Neighborhood cafés. The smell of freshly-ground coffee, steamed milk, the quiet hum of people in their own little table bubbles amidst overflowing community boards. For most, this environment elicits feelings of focus, relaxation, and productivity, but we certainly don’t miss it!

In 2016, the Beaded Treasures Project moved out of our baby boots and into our first brick and mortar location. Excitement, anticipation, and slight nerves have all been rolled together. But the best part - no more team meetings in a coffee shop!

As much as we all love local coffee, working from cafés was not a productive way of moving the organization forward.

Enter 659 South 8th Street, Louisville, KY 40203! We now have three rooms: one to conduct workshops and classes in, an office, and a showroom.There’s even a communal event space in the building for hosting events and our Chai & Chit Chats.

This location is far more than just a few rooms; it allows us to organize more classes and workshops, with greater control over materials, tools, and instruction.The workshop space means women can come to advance their skills, learn new methods, and even have a quiet, creative studio away from their kids for a few hours.

Having a permanent location means that we can now serve the local community through our own events, in addition to regular appearances city-wide. The more people we interact with fosters greater compassion and understanding for women in our program as they transition from poverty to gaining an income, and confidence in their work as well as themselves.

You can now shop at your leisure! Until this moment, the community’s only chance at supporting our project meant hunting down which local farmers market we were selling at, or shopping on our website. The Showroom will give you an opportunity to see our best work, the workshop class’ latest pieces, and get a glimpse at our global fair trade products.