One of our core beliefs within Touch of Hope is to keep families together. All of our ministries – in one way or another – have goals to keeping families together.
Outside of our ministries, our biggest effort for job creation is through Rosie’s Boutique. Rosie’s was founded by Kayla in 2014 with the sole intentions being to promote companies in Haiti that are working to keep families together through job creation. The boutique was to also create a revenue for her own family and put money back into Touch of Hope’s ministries. In 2016, Renae opened up another storefront in Rock Rapids, Iowa (the hometown to the Grooters’s family) and that store quickly became a success, helping to create more revenue for Touch of Hope’s projects and ministries.
When Rosie’s was founded, the intention was to buy products from already existing companies, but in 2015, God opened doors for more employment opportunities and Rosie’s started producing greeting cards and employing women who were graduating from the Starfish Program. We started with a small group of eight women and by 2018, we were employing 26 women, providing stable incomes to their families. Today (2025) we continue to employ 30 women & 1 male!
The business continued to grow and in 2017 plans were made to build an expansion. Touch of Hope purchased a piece of property right off the main highway and built a permanent boutique building with a full kitchen included in the spring of 2018. The expansion was a dream come true but we unfortunately had to close its doors late 2019 due to the insecurity.
Our brick and mortar in Rock Rapids continues to thrive and we do all of our online fulfillment from there, too. Kayla has her own office space, where she continues to communicate, work with and order from artisans across all sectors in Haiti. The greeting card team continues to be supported, importing & exporting is a genuine adventure as the country remains unstable, but we remain committed to the dream, because we believe secure jobs are the way we alleviate poverty.
Touch of Hope Haiti 