The Lord led our family to start Hands and Hearts in May of 2003. We have heard people say that their company is really God's company, but we never really understood it until Hands and Hearts was born. We feel that God wanted this company to be created, and we are honored that he chose our home in which to do it!!
At this point, Hands and Hearts is operating out of our family's home and we have several young men that work part time in helping us. We are not a big, impersonal business - we are just a normal family and we work very hard at keeping a very personal line of communication open with all of our customers. After all, we consider you to be our family too!
The head of our family is Jeff. He spent 10 years working as an Organization Development Manager of an iron foundry in our town. However, as of May 2008 he has been able to work from home and we are hoping that he will be able to stay at home supported by Hands and Hearts and some other business ventures he is involved in. When he has free time he loves to wrestle with or read to our children, go on dates with Kate, and play chess. Jeff handles all of the inventory control, bookkeeping, and most of the customer communication, and makes all of the final decisions about our business.
Second in command is Kate. Her most important job is home educating our eight children. In her free time she loves to read, bake, scrapbook, and get taken on dates by Jeff. Kate handles all of the website design and maintenance, the product development and design, and writes all of the instruction manuals. She also researches new products from other companies and interfaces with those companies as a buyer.
Of course, we try to keep our children active in our business as well. They test new projects before our regular testers get them, suggest new projects and products, prepare materials for inclusion in our kits, and help pack and ship orders. Hannah Grace, who is 15, loves horses, cooking, and can almost always be found with her nose in a book. She has also started begging her daddy for driving lessons (gulp!). William (14), Matthew (12), Timothy (10), and David (8), love dressing up, playing with Legos, and running around in our wooded lot. They have turned the back yard into "Bricks-a-boxin" (after being inspired by the classic children's book "Roxaboxin"), a race track for their bikes and "cars," a couple of forts, and have been busy digging for Confederate treasure and dinosaur bones. Sarah Elisabeth, who is 6, is just as much of a princess as her name implies. She is a busy, happy young lady who is truly adored by her five older siblings. Her primary interests are playing with her stuffed animals (especially elephants), setting "elephant traps" in hopes of finally catching a real elephant to keep as a pet, and riding bikes with her brothers.
The youngest boy our family at this time, is Noah (2). He is a wonderful blessing to our family, but is unfortunately having a hard time physically due to a mitochondrial disorder. You can follow his journey by reading our blog (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ourquiverfull). It is amazing how God is using Noah's life to bless others as well and our own family.
In January of 2008 our 8th child was born. Mary Faith Adele is a treasure and we wonder how we ever lived without her.
All of us consider it a tremendous blessing to be able to minister to you. We pray for our customers as we pack kits and pack orders. We hope that you will not hesitate to contact us if we can ever be of service to you!
