Hope is a most precious asset the world needs today because many people are experiencing traumas that put them off balance, especially the refugees. In 2022, the US admitted almost 25,465 refugees. And given the pandemic, immigrants now face high levels of unemployment and income losses, leading to mental pressures and dysfunctions, particularly for refugee women and children. Therefore, seeing people like Stephanie Giddens keen to help these refugees find their place in society is an absolute delight. Who is Stephanie?

While her extended family is from Fort Worth, Stephanie Giddens grew up in Arlington as a DFW native. Growing up, she served in the non-profit space in different capacities. For example, immediately after college, she worked as a health educator for the Head Start program. Later, she helped start a non-profit ministry, Polished, designed to connect young professional women and explore faith. So don’t be surprised; Stephanie may be a regular, predictable person. But she doesn’t hesitate to go big when it comes to major projects she’s keen about, like Polished and Vickery Trading Company. Considering how Vickery Trading Company came up, there’s a lot more to learn about Stephanie. Yes, she was once in the seminary. And she worked at a private equity firm for about six and a half years. All these, including her interest in the non-profit space, prepared her for the impactful work she was about to venture into with refugee women.

Here is one more important though challenging experience. Stephanie’s husband had received a job offer in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2013, so she had plans to start a social enterprise with him after relocating. Only for the opportunity to fall through 24 hours to shipping off their stuff. That was a hard pill to swallow, given they had sold their house. However, while later helping with her church, she realized the same assistance those overseas required is the same refugees in Dallas urgently need. It was a eureka moment! She discovered she had “this passion for helping women who have not been afforded education and just the freedoms that I have and the blessings that I have had access to just because of simply where I was born.”

So, Vickery Trading Company started in 2016. Its clear mission is to “equip refugee women for long-term success through vocational training, personal development, and fair wages.” According to Stephanie, “our beneficiaries are paid employees of our organization. We hire refugee women and train them to sew at a professional level, preparing them for professional employment at or full-time employment as seamstresses while they’re here.” She added that these refugee women receive holistic services such as training in English as a second language, computer literacy, financial literacy, and mental health services. And the reason for the latter is that “there’s a lot of compound trauma that refugees are carrying when they arrive. And so, they spend 21 months with us going through this training and those services.”

After 21 months, the refugee women go through job-readiness training. After this, they are assisted with job placements into seamstress positions. Stephanie noted a huge gap to be filled among seamstresses in the neighborhood. Plus, COVID took its toll on the industry. Thus, “there’s this vacuum. And so, it puts our ladies in a really good position to negotiate hours and salary as they’re moving in.”

Clearly, this model of bringing refugee women into the community and getting them started is a sure way to ascertain generational impact. Stephanie remarked, “You know, many refugees don’t have the luxury of starting over and going back to college and getting a degree. But this is an opportunity for them to earn income for their family…when some of them have not had a day of formal education in their lives, but they can earn income and start to get their families up on the right foot and get their kids into college, that’s where you start to see a generational impact.”

Wondering how these refugees are brought in? Vickery Trading Company partners with local resettlement agencies in Dallas, such as the International Rescue Committee, Refugee Services of Texas, and Catholic Charities.

There is also a network of non-profits and organizations working in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood, which helps recruit refugees. Their office at Northwest Community Center in the middle of Bickering Meadow is also a great place where people come from. The company’s hiring cycle is in every September. And their training classes are usually a mesh of refugees from different parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, Burma, Syria, Congo, Somalia, Eritrea, etc.

Interestingly, Vickery Trading has already impacted roughly about 100 people in total. And this comprises spouses, children, and other family members. Stephanie said, “There’s an average of about three kids per family. So, we’re getting to impact many people by helping the mamas.” They have had about 40 women who have gone through the 21-month program, and 13 have completed the program and graduated.

Now, running a social enterprise like this comes with challenges. So, for Stephanie, the two biggest challenges are being misunderstood and financial illiteracy. On the first, she notes, “people are like why would I donate when you sell things? That’s like, well, but we do a whole lot more with our money than market things. So, that continues to be a barrier on the business side.”

On the second challenge, she said, “We have partners for ESL, we partner with IRC for computer literacy. Financial literacy is this tricky thing because every bank has a financial literacy program, you know, but they’re designed for people who speak English or maybe Spanish who have basic math skills, (those who) are familiar with the American currency system and you cannot assume any of those things with a refugee. And so any financial literacy program enters at a higher level than a lot of refugees are ready for.”

Another major challenge they face is marketing, affecting the company’s fabric product sales. As it stands, product sales only contribute up to 25% of their revenue annually. And to up these sales, they have stepped into the grant space, looking to expand the revenue stream. Vickery Trading is also increasing its donor base. Stephanie shared that “for a non-profit to be healthy, you must have multiple forms of revenue. And the fact that we have the opportunity to have sales as a source of revenue is an incredible benefit as a non-profit.”

Don’t be too caught up with the challenges. After all, they have executed many projects this year and are looking forward to doing more. For instance, this year, they worked on “getting our staff, board and volunteers trauma-informed. Helping them understand the impact of trauma on the human brain and how that impacts behavior from a business perspective, (and) how it impacts performance.” Then, to facilitate a more immersive trauma knowledge base, they implemented trauma-informed yoga. Now, in the coming days, they are looking to introduce group therapy, probably in the form of art therapy. And that would be done via a partnership.

Vickery Trading Company is looking to solve poverty issues for their employees. They are also putting strategies in place to tackle the financial literacy gaps among the refugees and looking to expand production. Stephanie shared, “We’ve been approached by a few different organizations, saying, Hey, we love what you do. We need more manufacturing because again, there’s a shortage of seamstresses. Can you come and run your program and do the services you’re doing? But help us with our product as well. We do small batch private label manufacturing, but some bigger organizations have approached us to do that on a larger scale.” And that is a great revenue expansion scheme that would ultimately impact the program in its entirety.