About three years ago, Micah’s aide Melody began experimenting with tie dye and wondered if Micah might like helping her with her creations. She began to teach him the steps of the tie dye process and found him not only to engage, but to have a talent of mixing colors and wrapping the items that produced some especially nice tie dye creations. Mind you, he initially appeared to barely look at the items during the teaching/creating process. As the lessons continued, Micah’s focus seemed more intentional and he appeared to enjoy and look forward to the creative process when Melody set up the activity. This was a win/win as finding positive activities that keep Micah’s focus has always been challenging. Micah’s initial creations were fun for him to make and he made some nice gifts for others.
As the weeks went by, Melody began to wonder if his new hobby might be turned into one of his goals for his day program, focusing on different tie dye items as well developing a potential small business to sell his creations. Feedback from the Moore Center staff who oversee his day program was positive, so Micah, with Melody’s help began to build up inventory. After that, they began to consider how best to market his creations. Then Covid descended and the plans were put on hold for a few months as Melody took some time away. Although she was not working with Micah, she spent time learning more about different tie dye processes while she cared for her own vulnerable family members.
Micah was clearly pleased when Melody was able to return to oversee his day program and it was not long before they were back into the tie dye creation process as part of his day program. Inventory slowly built up as they experimented with different clothing items and a program goal of creating a business plan to market his items was added to his annual goals for his day program.
This is where things stalled for a period of time as Micah and Melody focused on different tie dye creations but none of us were sure about how to market them beyond our close circle of family and friends. Micah’s sister Jamie offered to help with the marketing plan as she has an on-line Posh site. She posted a few of his items, leading to some sales which were encouraging as they gave momentum to the goal of Micah having a small business but we were clueless about how to best proceed with potential website development until we learned that Micah’s future sister-in-law, Jes was gifted in website design. Jes offered to meet with Melody to work on a website to feature Micah’s tie dye creations and the Micah James Collection was born and is now ready to be launched!
Please keep in mind that each item is unique as Micah creates them one by one. This will never be a high volume business as he makes one or two items a week, but it is a fun way for him to share his artistic talent with others. Please take a moment to check out his website, and if interested follow the link to go to his Esty site to shop. You can request items to be created with your specific color combinations and sizes, but do keep in mind that each item is unique and the pace of production will be based on Micah’s ability to focus each week. It has been a joy to discover Micah’s artistic talent, as well as a joy to see how Micah has been blessed by the creative talents of Melody and Jes as without them, the Micah James Collection would not exist.
Please follow the link below to check out his website and click “Shop Online” if you are interested in purchasing one of Micah’s creations:
Jan Lessard Peightell November 18, 2021