Humans of Cleveland — Lee Clarion

BonLife bustled with people chatting over espresso and confessing affections over nutella lattes this Valentine's weekend. Coffeeshop singers crooned over speakers mixing with the hiss of machines. People sat in yellow chairs, wooden chairs, metal outside chairs while sporting sweaters and jeans and striped dresses. Amongst the frenzy of things in the little area were over 700 Valentine's Day flowers being sold as a fundraiser.

Curious about the festive florals, we spoke with Hailey Johnston who was heading up the sale.

'What passions do you have?'

'I love to sew. I love to create. I love the creative side of sewing. I love women. There's this thing with women, the idea of empowering and support women in our community. It's kind of a global idea.'

'What is your home like?'

'I am a full-time stay at home mom and my husband is in the ministry. Raising our children, being intentional about raising them to see outside our home and to see the needs of others. Our number one priority is to raise our girls to love the Lord. That's really our main desire in our home.'

'What are you selling flowers for?'

'Free 2 Fly. We're a non-profit that works for women in our community that are unemployed. We teach them the skill of sewing and we offer a full line of products made by the women in our program. The profits from sales are given back to them. We connect them to career, counseling, resources they need and set them up for their future. We want to see them be successful and self-sufficient.'

'How did this all start?'

'I always loved to sew and I sew for my daughters and I did an online small sewing business. I had the thought then that it would be so neat if we could have other women sewing these products. With motherhood, I stopped sewing. It was during a Bible study with my church that the Lord really started to bring that thought back to my mind and started bringing the women into my life. As I started seeing these women I just started praying about it. It was kind of a crazy idea.'

'What is your dream for the project?'

'Our goal is to have success stories. Whatever goals they want to do, that they start chasing after these goals. We would love to extend it beyond Cleveland.'

More information about Free 2 Fly can be found at www.projectfree2fly.com.