ONE YEAR AGO WE WON THIS AWARD CLICK THE LINK...

SOMETHING TO READ AND WATCH ( A DOC ABOUT ME AND THE WORK I DO )

I DO NOT SELL JEANS ANYMORE

SOMETHING TO WATCH…

A MOMENT TO REFLECT CLICK HERE!

In 2025, Holy Stitch! Factory Fellowship was named a Community Champion by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

I have been thinking about that moment again because nominations are now open for the 2026 Excellence in Business Awards—the EBBIES. Last year, we stood in a room with some of San Francisco’s leading businesses and organizations and heard our name called. For a moment, the work happening inside our factory at 1059 Market Street was seen by the whole city.

That meant more to me than I knew how to explain at the time.

Holy Stitch! was not built from a perfect business plan, unlimited funding, or a smooth road. It was built from fabric, machines, mistakes, young people willing to learn, and the belief that San Francisco should still be a place where things are actually made.

We teach people how to sew. We repair the jeans others throw away. We manufacture garments locally. We create paid opportunities, internships, classes, workshops, and real pathways into fashion and production. We have grown from zero dollars in revenue to $46,000 and then to $135,000 in two years—not because the conditions were easy, but because the community kept showing up and we refused to stop.

We have also learned that recognition does not remove struggle.

An award does not pay every bill. It does not make the streets outside our factory safer. It does not automatically create the systems, staffing, funding, and partnerships needed to grow. It does not erase the pressure of running a factory, a school, a nonprofit, and a community space under one roof.

But recognition does matter.

It tells the young person learning on an industrial sewing machine that their work has value. It tells the customer choosing a local repair over another disposable purchase that they are part of something larger. It tells our apprentices, interns, staff, supporters, and neighbors that the city sees what they are building. And it tells other unconventional founders that you do not have to look like a traditional institution to make a real civic impact.

Winning Community Champion did not tell us that we had arrived. It challenged us to become more accountable to the title.

Since then, our commitment has become clearer: make real jeans in San Francisco, preserve manufacturing knowledge, train the next generation, create economic opportunity, and prove that creativity can be infrastructure—not decoration.

We are still here on Market Street. We are still sewing. We are still teaching. We are still building the retail space, strengthening the factory, developing our programs, and trying to create a model that can survive long enough to serve the next generation.

Some days, being called a community champion feels less like receiving a trophy and more like accepting an assignment.

That is probably what the best awards should do. They should not only celebrate what has already happened. They should place a responsibility on the people being honored to keep going, reach further, and bring more people with them.

Now the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce is accepting nominations for the 2026 EBBIES. The categories include Excellence in Business, Small Business of the Year, Non-Profit of the Year, Sustainability Excellence, Community Champion, and Public Servant of the Year.

If you know a business, nonprofit, organization, or public servant doing the difficult and often invisible work of making San Francisco better, nominate them. Do not assume somebody else will tell their story. Specific achievements, growth, and measurable impact matter—but so does the human reality behind the numbers.

Someone nominated us. Someone made sure our work entered the room before we did.

That nomination became recognition. That recognition became momentum. And that momentum reminded us that the work matters—even when it is hard, even when it is underfunded, and even when the results are still being sewn together one piece at a time.

Thank you to the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, everyone who has supported Holy Stitch!, and every person who has walked through our doors ready to learn, create, repair, or believe.

We won last year.

This year, we are working to deserve it all over again.

Nominations for the 2026 Excellence in Business Awards close August 30, 2026. The awards will be presented October 13, 2026, at the California Academy of Sciences.