Daily Inspiration: Meet Leslye Borden

Today we’d like to introduce you to Leslye Borden.

Hi Leslye, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I started Handmade Especially for You at the end of 2008. I retired just prior and was looking for a way to combine my hobby of knitting with charity. I sent some scarves to a charity in Chicago that served rape survivors. The exec director called and asked me where was my letter telling how I survived. I have never been raped so I had no letter. I wanted to just send scarves. “Start your own charity,” she advised. And I did. It took a few months to find my first shelter for abused women, Rainbow Services, in San Pedro, but once I did, I quickly found others. 3 by the end of the year, 20 by the end of 2009, 50 soon after. Now we serve 70 shelters for abused and homeless women throughout California.

What’s great about Handmade is that our comfort scarves are often the first personal gift the woman has ever received. Getting it, lifts her self esteem. It gives her hope for a future free of abuse. We, the makers of the scarves, for the most part are retired women who love to knit/crochet. But our families and friends have received all the scarves, etc. they want from us. But we are not “done.” We still want to contribute. Making scarves for abused women lifts our self esteem too.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
For the most part, it was a smooth road. Many women come to Handmade because they want to give back to the community. Many are abuse survivors themselves who wish someone had given them a scarf on their way away from a life with abuse. Women from all over the US have joined with us. We are a very feel good organization.

At the beginning, a local yarn shop owner gave us a lot of support. She invited us to meet at her store, she hosted bins so women could pick up kits and drop off finished scarves. She died suddenly in a traffic accident in 2018. Then we had no where to meet. We tried the back room at big craft stores until Covid, when we couldn’t meet there as well. Luckily I came up with the idea of my preparing work for volunteers who wanted it which they could pick up at my side door. We did this all during Covid and met once a month in the park just to keep in touch.

Now we have teams of measurers, winders, wrappers, and shippers in addition to our knitters and crocheters. What was an answer to Covid became our way of making and shipping scarves. It has worked out well and unlike many small non-profits, we have grown during Covid, not disappeared.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I started off in academia, studying Russian History. Well into my graduate studies, I had 2 surprise babies and withdrew to be take care of my children. When I had a third child, a friend and I started making funky baby clothes and selling them to baby boutiques here in Los Angeles. Our company was Flash and Trash. After a few years, my husband joined us. We sold to many independent children’s stores and national department stores.

After that, I was hired by Arco to prepare for publication “The fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry,” the legacy of the chairman of the board Robert Anderson, on the occasion of his retirement. There I met my next business partner. When we finished this project, we founded PhotoEdit, a stock photo agency. We specialized in providing text book publishers with positive images of ethnic and minority children and families. I am very proud of the work we did at PhotoEdit. I felt we really contributed to the education of all children in every community.

After 20 years, a buyer came along and bought our company. I couldn’t have imagined doing anything but what I did at PhotoEdit. I got so much satisfaction from my work there. But Handmade gives me tremendous satisfaction as well. At Handmade, I have no pressures for “making money,” “paying rent,” “supporting a payroll.” Whatever I do, helps the women who make and receive our comfort scarves. It is really a soul satisfying activity for me.

Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
My husband deserves a lot of credit for supporting me. He was a professor at UCLA when I started Flash and Trash. As Flash and Trash grew, I needed time to buy supplies and visit clients. He took over child care and household duties first one afternoon a week, then two afternoons, then a full day. By the time he joined me in the running of Flash and Trash, we alternated days.

The same with PhotoEdit. We started the slide library in our home. By the time we took over three bedrooms (all our kids were in college), we had 8 employees. We moved to an office in Long Beach. He totally supported my using the house as our headquarters. And setting up numerous photo shoots.

The same with Handmade which is entirely in my house. Everyone says he is a saint, and he is. There is yarn everywhere, boxes everywhere, finished and unfinished scarves, wrapped and unwrapped scarves. Our house is filled with good intentions. Plus he makes all our gift tags, creates and prints flyers, and carries all the boxes–yarn, scarves, everything. I can’t imagine a more supportive person.

Pricing:

• We give away our scarves for free.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.handmadeespecially.org
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100067104972869