[/caption]Carol Forsloff - Is there hope for young families in a bad economy? One family answers with a resounding yes, as we learn how the man and wife found a solution to underemployment while fulfilling childhood dreams.
It’s a warm and wonderful day at the Portland Saturday Market, and Little Dreamers, tucked under a colorful tent, reaches out to passersby with a colorful array of goods bound to please every little girl. In fact those goods are the type that can often fulfill the dreams a child’s heart makes when thinking about fairy tales and pretty princesses.
Colorful fluff and stuff dangle on hangers that spread around a booth that literally light up a little girl’s eyes. With all the things to buy the Portland Saturday Market affords, this booth offers the magic of believing for happy children and the enterprising family that serves up the goods.
Ballet skirts, or tutus, that can be attached to tee shirts, blouses, leotards and other pretty things, attract little girls who pass by and exclaim to mom and dad that when they wish upon a star, they dream of pretty dresses. And nothing makes a pretty dress more magical than a tutu of frothy fun.
The business card from Little Dreamers offered to passersby at the Portland Saturday Market has a Facebook and Web address where the skirts and mobiles can be ordered. What isn’t on that card is how this business became one that supports an entire family during difficult economic times. “My husband worked at a pizza place, and I was employed in a factory, despite the fact we are both college graduates," Whitney explains. She is the designer and owner of Little Dreamers Inc. She then explained how her company has brought her prosperity through fulfilling the dreams of many little girls. "One day I saw a pretty ballet skirt in a window and watched my daughter’s face light up with a hope I might buy it for her. I went inside the shop , and after looking at the garment, decided I could create a similar one and maybe even better. That was three years ago, and now we get orders from all around the world through our email. It takes 7 days a week of work for my husband and I to meet the growing demand.
“We believed in ourselves and our dream,” the designer, Whitney Crimefighter maintains. “I think our pretty dresses and mobiles offer something special that folks find they can’t resist.”
One young family finds a way to prosper in a bad economy, at a time when people are trying to find traditional jobs that continue to dry up in the wake of a prolonged business downturn or who remain underemployed because good jobs for young people are scarce. But there are always places where folks can find a niche and a way to get through hard times, in spite of the struggle it takes, as this narrative about a young family's economic survival tells us.
A Russian émigré explained one day to a journalist in conversation at a cafe in New Orleans that during the terrible times in Russia following World War II, the people who survived economically were those who sold shoes, those who made bread and those who told fortunes. “ The fortunes, he said, meant offering a form of magic to people who believe the magic has gone from their lives, the kind that Little Dreamers rekindles in the eyes of happy children, offering hope to a young family and the magic of believing for the rest of us.