Business feature: Against the odds

CLOVIS — The pandemic has been hard on small businesses. Even so, there has been an emergence of young entrepreneurs fighting the odds.

Cassandra Hovious of Clovis, Cydnee Widner of Melrose, and April and Jason Roberts of Clovis have all planned or recently opened new business ventures this last year.

Hovious, 22, launched her online shop Created Candle Co. on Feb. 1, with a variety of home-poured candles and wax melts.

Inspiration for the name came from Revelation 4:11 (NLT), but her motivation for starting the business was her family.

“Created Candle Co. was started as something to keep me occupied and maybe make some money so I could be a full-time mom and wife at home. God did his amazing work and now we’ve almost sold out completely on my first launch and I’m working constantly to get ready for our restock and new product launch,” she said.

Widner started Gold Medal Performance in 2020 after earning bachelors of science degrees in both kinesiology and athletic training from New Mexico State University and moving to Melrose with her husband. Injuries sustained in college while pursuing professional cheer and dance led to her spending a lot of time in the athletic training room where she discovered her calling.

“I started Gold Medal Performance in 2020 after our son was born because I wanted to be able to provide athletic training services to the rural schools as well as the general community,” Widner said.

“Then, I started to really miss performing and felt like the area really lacked an arts community and so I decided to also offer dance lessons. I just feel for the rural communities and thought I could provide these services to them and then they wouldn’t have to commute so far.”

Her dance classes, which include tap, jazz, ballet and cheer, will start Tuesday.

The Roberts own Five Heart Farms, a livestock-focused operation founded in 2017 as an offshoot of the family farm. Their goal was to change how farmers and consumers interact, and last summer they began to offer specialty meat boxes directly from their farm.

“We had a vision to transition our farm from conventional to direct to consumer, and that is the path we are on,” April Roberts said.

“We know that knowing where your food comes from is important, but trusting where it comes from is essential. We raise cattle and pigs for meat and sell it direct to consumers locally and across the nation.”

For these businesses the pandemic has affected their plans but has not changed their direction.

“I think anytime you start up a new business,” said Hovious, who pushed back her startup date due to unexpected planning and costs, “it has its trial and error but with COVID-19 I feel like my online presence matters way more than it would have if the world was still normal. No one can just stop in and smell my products and I’m having to rely more heavily on my online marketing strategies just like any other business currently.”

April Roberts said: “A lot of our plans for gatherings, farm to table dinners, and events had to be canceled but we have been able to truly connect with so many families locally and nationwide despite the challenges due to the pandemic. When grocery store shelves were empty and people were panicked we were able to provide meats for so many families straight from our family farm. For a lot of people, buying from our farm has been their first ‘farm to table’ experience, and we feel honored to be a part of that.”

Widner said: “Obviously, a pandemic is not the ideal time to start a business but for me and my family it all just started to happen. However, there have been challenges trying to get certain aspects off the ground.”

Widner said that with schools reopening on a hybrid schedule she is hopeful to begin discussions about the cooperative again.

“From the dance studio side of things, I had tried to start dance and cheer classes earlier in the pandemic, but it was going to be too challenging to comply with all the COVID-19 safe practices,” Widner said. “Now that the vaccine is starting to be distributed more people are willing to participate in group events.”

All three business owners said they’ve been blown away with the early support, both in sales and through social media posts and referrals.