Rep. Hinson spotlights Hen and Chicks Studio during Conrad stop
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CONRAD -- Despite later admitting she's a novice quilter and might need to enroll in one of Hen and Chicks Owner Heidi Kaisand's beginner's classes, U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) felt her mood improve from the moment she stepped inside the headquarters of the unique small business on Conrad's Main Street Tuesday afternoon.
"I can sense your energy and passion," Hinson said to Kaisand. "I'm happier having talked to you."
After a stop at the Butler County Rural Electric Cooperative (REC) and a town hall meeting in Eldora earlier in the day, Hinson swung through town and met with Kaisand for just shy of an hour to learn more about the history of her business and discuss the challenges she faces. The meeting was arranged through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses initiative, and Jimmy Centers of Des Moines-based Cornerstone Public Affairs also attended alongside Kaisand, who is an alumni of the 10,000 Small Businesses educational program, and a pair of Hinson's staffers.
Kaisand's business, which she launched 12 years ago, draws visitors from across the country and is more than just a quilt shop -- she also publishes a trade magazine called Creative Retailer and hosts retreats complete with options to either rent space by the hour or stay overnight for those seeking to improve their skills. She stressed the importance of "collaboration, not competition" and highlighted the friendships and partnerships she has forged with other businesses, whether they're quilt and fabric shops or area restaurants eager to feed the people who come to town.
As they moved to the upper level, Kaisand took the opportunity to show off more of her creations and explained that Hen and Chicks is open "365 days a year" and willing to book when anybody needs it.
"I believe that women work hard and are busy with family and friends, and they need to have time to rejuvenate," Kaisand said.
She added that those who come in complete a wide variety of projects, and in response to another question about what classes she teaches, Kaisand said she mostly only offers beginning courses because she can't get the others full enough to make them worthwhile.
When asked what about her business gives her headaches or keeps her up at night, Kaisand told Hinson it was the little things -- upgrades, repairs, rust and tripping hazards at her historic building, paying off the mortgage so that she can someday retire, the desire to sell her trade publication by the end of 2024 and applying for competitive grants, to name a few, and the Congresswoman commended her for putting "man hours and capital" into it.
"That's where it's hard. I want to be here. I want to be a good steward for the next person," she said. "At this point, (paying off the mortgage) is part of my retirement plan, and so I'm gonna say that frustrates me that I'm just not big enough. I'm just not a big enough store to be able to do that yet. I desire to do that. If I won the lottery, I would absolutely do that."
Hinson said she would be happy to provide letters of recommendation for future grant applications and would look into other ways to help Hen and Chicks going forward. In a surprise twist, Kaisand reported that her business actually skyrocketed during the pandemic as more people were at home and either reigniting their passion for quilting or trying it for the first time, but it has tapered off a bit since then, especially with the economic crunches of the last few years.
"There's nothing anybody needs in a quilt shop except peace of mind," Kaisand said.
In a small town, she noted, many of her employees are also her friends, and it's hard to make cuts when money gets tight. Nevertheless, she has focused more on the X's and O's of cash flow and capital thanks to a book called Profit First.
"Once I kind of got my head wrapped around that, then I wasn't beating myself up about 'What am I doing wrong?' It's just that the anomaly of those three (COVID) years is over. We're absolutely out of it," Kaisand said.
Although most of the discussion was apolitical, Kaisand did tell Hinson it frustrated her to read reports of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan fraud, and Centers spoke of the need to modernize the Small Business Administration (SBA) loan process, calling it "quite cumbersome" in its current form.
During a subsequent media interview, Hinson described herself as "laser focused" on engaging with the people she serves during the August recess of Congress and streamlining services aimed at helping small business owners.
"Ultimately, I think the government bureaucracy has forgotten who they work for, and when we're paying, for example, $7 billion in taxpayer money to rent these facilities out and they're not showing up to work, that seems like a waste to me," she said. "When we know our constituents are getting dial tones or long waits on those phones, that's a huge problem and concern."
In response to a follow up question on the aforementioned PPP fraud, she said government agencies have done a good job of identifying it and holding bad actors accountable, but she said it was on Congress to dictate the parameters of the programs and provide said agencies with the resources to claw back unused funds.
"I think that we can't let good be the enemy of perfect, but we need to make sure that safeguards are in place because this is taxpayer money -- it's not government money," she said. "And so in my mind, we need to write legislation narrowly, especially if we are creating programs like this where the intent was, through no fault of their own, obviously people experienced a major national pandemic that shut down our economy. And so the goal there was to make sure that that didn't happen, and in the effort to move quickly, obviously there were clearly some holes."
Hinson, who has thus far remained neutral in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, stressed the importance of candidates showing up in Iowa and answering tough questions so that a Republican can take back the White House come next year and combat the "unfettered government" of the Biden Administration. Speaking of tough questions, the final one of the day was about her quilting ability and whether she'd be signing up for one of Kaisand's classes, and she answered by telling the story of a quilt she received from her grandmother that was made by her great-great-grandmother.
"I'd say this visit makes me want to go take it out and just look at it more in-depth. I can basically sew a button, and that's about it," she said.
"Beginner's class is Aug. 24," Kaisand replied.