The Work in Each Stitch

What did you do once the 2019-2020 school year came to an early end? Binge watch hours upon hours of shows? Spend concerning amounts of time playing Minecraft? Or did you become more productive and motivated to do new things with the extra time you had? Some of our Maui High students felt just that and started their very own businesses! Among these students is junior Jenna Payba, creator of a handmade face mask business. Over the course of a month, she sold over 200 masks, but what kind of work was put into the business to reach that accomplishment?

With over four years of sewing and a can-do spirit, Jenna made the jump to start her store in mid-July because of what she noticed in the community.

“I came up with the idea because I had just been making masks for my friends. With COVID and social distancing, it was a way for me to keep myself busy.“

With a surplus of motivation, she decided to open her business and for the past month, she has spent many hard-working hours in front of her sewing machine precisely stitching the ends of elastic, redoing crooked stitching on the edges of masks during late hours of the night, examining each mask for any mistakes (little or big), and following all that with more daunting tasks. Order after order, Jenna’s business was host to many eye-opening lessons.

“In order to have a successful business, you need to put the customer first.”

Like the time she had to prioritize mask orders because her customer was leaving for college in two days. But, from that experience

“-it made me realize how much work these small businesses put into their shop.”

Running a business is a huge task to take on, but to Jenna, it is all worth it in the end because of the positive impact she is making on the community.

“I get the satisfaction of knowing that I'm helping our community because these people will be wearing masks and staying safe during these frightening times.”