Courtney Kimball
Courtney Kimball and Kym Frey are the founders, CEOs, and women who run OneCommonThread. They just happen to be sisters with a goal to empower women.
In 2017, Courtney moved to Honduras with her husband and six of her nine children to pursue an expansion of their family's business. She was quickly humbled by the poverty she saw just looking from the window of her apartment. One day, she decided to venture out of her comfortable home and meet the families living in the "Bordo" (slums) nearby. After meeting them, she knew she could help, but she didn't know how. First, it was supplying beds, then formula, then food, and the list goes on, all through the help of generous friends back in the U.S.
While her efforts were well appreciated, she recognized the need for them to have an opportunity to work. With so little education and even less job opportunities there was no way for any of them to create a consistent means of support. She remembers thinking, "I need to help them earn an income, but how?" Courtney has always been an avid quilter and has a special love and interest in making quilts using hexagons. This personal hobby prompted her to have the women she knew, who were living in poor conditions, sew the hexagons she used for her own quilt making. If she paid them per hexagon, it would speed up her process. Soon word spread about the "Gringa" who was providing work for some of the women in the Bordo. The next time she arrived with more material, she had five more women asking to participate. Soon Courtney found herself managing up to fifteen women at a time.
While her efforts were well appreciated, she recognized the need for them to have an opportunity to work. With so little education and even less job opportunities there was no way for any of them to create a consistent means of support. She remembers thinking, "I need to help them earn an income, but how?" Courtney has always been an avid quilter and has a special love and interest in making quilts using hexagons. This personal hobby prompted her to have the women she knew, who were living in poor conditions, sew the hexagons she used for her own quilt making. If she paid them per hexagon, it would speed up her process. Soon word spread about the "Gringa" who was providing work for some of the women in the Bordo. The next time she arrived with more material, she had five more women asking to participate. Soon Courtney found herself managing up to fifteen women at a time.
