Sophomore Eva Bessette designs a unique sweatshirt for each customer. Courtesy | Eva Bessette

When the spring semester ends and students must find a home for their amassed clutter, it isn’t the students who stress about finding a storage unit – it’s their moms. That’s what Junior Nathan Rastovac realized the spring of his freshman year, and it provided the inspiration for his student storage business, StorageForStudents.

“That’s when it clicked that I want to provide a stress free, service business that stores students’ belongings over the summer,” Rastovac said. “The creation of StorageForStudents is to alleviate the stress for the students and their parents, specifically mothers, and provide a great trustworthy service.”

Rastovac said he finds it fulfilling to alleviate a pain students and families experience every year.

“Providing this service is so rewarding because I am able to help families focus on more meaningful moments like welcoming their kid home for a summer and to alleviate the struggle for students who are taking finals and dealing with academic pressure,” Rastovac said.

Rastovac is one of many students who are balancing school with side hustles, ranging from homemade soaps to custom patchwork sweatshirts. The entrepreneurs find time between study sessions and extracurriculars — squeezing in production, storing inventory under dorm beds, and responding to customer orders.

Junior Allie Springer started her business, Allie’s Apiary, in the spring of 2023, inspired by her family’s backyard beekeeping operation.

Springer said each summer, she and her father extracted honey using a centrifuge-like device to spin the honey from the comb.

“What got me interested in Allie’s Apiary products was the need to make use of the wax,” Springer said. “I started with just lip balm and my hair wax stick, and it has now turned into soap and candle production as well.”

According to Springer, the process is hands-on, blending her interest in science with the practicalities of creating products.

“My Hillsdale science coursework has been helpful in my lip balm-making ‘lab,’” Springer said. She said it gave her insight into why certain ingredients interact the way they do, helping her refine her recipes.

As she continues to experiment, Springer said that some products have come together more easily than she expected.

“The most surprising aspect is how simple most beeswax recipes are,” Springer said “The most difficult project so far has been soap, so much more trial and error will need to be done to get the results I want.”

Springer has thought about the future of her business, as well.

“As long as my family keeps up the beekeeping, I plan to continue with my beeswax work,” Springer said “The next step, if I expand, would be to offer products online.”

While Springer’s business is tied to the rhythm of summer harvesting, other student entrepreneurs find themselves sewing and crafting alongside their academic workload.

Sophomore Eva Bessette launched her business, PatchesxPlaces, after repurposing a plain sweatshirt she couldn’t bring herself to throw away.

“I had a blank sweatshirt that I never wore but didn’t want to get rid of,” Bessette said. “To save the piece, I decided to do something creative with it.”

After posting her first creation online, she was surprised by the reaction.

“A flood of inquiries filled my messages of people saying I should sell them or asking to buy them,” Bessette said.

Encouraged by this response, she began making custom patchwork sweatshirts, each designed to represent a favorite place or memory suggested by the customer. Each sweatshirt is customized, with symbols, words, and shapes cut out and sewn onto the sweatshirt to reflect whatever vision the customer has. Some sweatshirts have patches shaped as a cross to represent the customer’s faith, or a symbol to pay tribute to a sorority on campus.

As an art major, Bessette said her creativity flows naturally into her work, but managing her time is not always easy.

“Currently I am working to balance school and my business,” Bessette said. “With an intense schedule, I haven’t had a huge amount of time to spend creating my sweatshirts, but I brought all my supplies and sewing machine up with the hopes of producing more soon.”

Despite the challenges, she said she dreams of expanding her business.

“The dream is to own a clothing business. The business would have both a patchwork sweatshirt component and a clothing resale component,” Bessette said.

Senior Carlie Steele started Citrus and Honey Co., a company rooted in sustainability, offering products that range from macrame plant hangers to earrings and tote bags.

“My goal is to be as sustainable as possible,” Steele said, describing how she uses thrifted and repurposed materials for her products.

“All of the bottles I use for the macrames, the charms for the jewelry, and the fabric for the embroidery and sewing projects are all secondhand, which allows me to make products that are unique and one of a kind,” Steele said. “I’m able to give something vintage a new life, making it wearable or usable for someone with more modern preferences.”

Steele said Citrus and Honey Co. is also about encouraging others to experiment with their style.

“I wanted people, Hillsdale students in particular, to feel comfortable stepping out of their stylistic comfort zones, debuting a pair of statement earrings or a loud tote bag, and start to challenge themselves in expanding their aesthetic tastes,” Steele said.

Steele credits her studies in marketing for helping her better understand how to run her business.

“As a marketing major and psychology minor, I’ve learned so much about consumer behavior and communicating with customers to better understand their wants, needs, and preferences,” Steele said.

For her, the most rewarding aspect has been the support from fellow students.

“I love seeing students up the hill proudly wearing a pair of earrings that I made, or seeing funky macrame plant hangers in peoples’ dorms,” Steele said.

Steele said the culture at Hillsdale has made it easier to start her business because it is both kind and collaborative. In general, however, starting a new business can be nerve-wracking.

“There’s always a fear of putting out your own artwork and creations to the judgment of others, especially when your business is more eclectic and acquired in style,” Steele said. “The support I’ve received from the student body and other small businesses has been so surprising and heartwarming.”

Though her business is currently limited to pop-up shops and word-of-mouth sales, Steele is excited to expand after graduation, hoping to bring her creations to craft fairs in her home state of Oregon.

Sophomore Bernadette Novacek is working to launch Bib and Tucker, a children’s clothing brand inspired by the styles of her own childhood. Her love for sewing came from her great-grandmother, who taught her the craft when she was 10. Now, Novacek hopes to fill a gap in the market.

“Most businesses in the market are based in Europe, and their products are priced too high for parents to feel that they can dress their children tastefully on a day-to-day basis,” Novacek said, adding that she sees Bib and Tucker as a way to offer parents a more accessible option.

“I hope to offer mothers the opportunity to dress their children in timeless pieces outside of just holidays and family photos,” Novacek said.

According to Novacek, the name Bib and Tucker comes from an old idiom meaning “dressed in your best bib and tucker,” which is synonymous with “dressed to the nines.”

In order to balance school and her business, Novacek makes use of every spare moment to work on her brand.

“I usually get strokes of inspiration while I’m working my campus job or as I’m walking to and from classes,” Novacek said. “Between classes, jobs, and assignments, it’s a constant sprint to get a bit ahead so that I can work on my business. I’ve learned to take any moment I have to work — even if it’s just five minutes while I wait for my friend to meet me at AJ’s.”

Novacek’s goal is to launch her first collection by Easter of the upcoming year, but her vision for Bib and Tucker extends beyond style.

“One of my biggest dreams is to one day partner with a charity that ministers to children who have been the victims of sexualization,” Novacek said. “My passion for beauty is definitely the driving force behind this business, but my desire to share the loveliness of classy, high-quality clothing with mothers is also fueled by my hope to combat the clothing industry’s complicit sexualization of children by encouraging age-appropriate styles.”

Despite the hectic pace, Novacek said she finds her work deeply rewarding.

“I really do believe that the way you dress impacts your confidence and demeanor, and I’m so grateful for the example my mom set regarding the importance of loveliness,” she said. “Working on my business, although it can be overwhelming as a student, is incredibly rewarding because it really has taught me to appreciate the process instead of being obsessed with perfect results right away.”