The heart of our mission is to find the amazing souls that breathe life into our communities. In the recent weeks, we’ve had the privilege to connect with some incredible artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and rabble rousers and we can’t begin to express how impressed we are with the incredible group below. Check out our favorite stories from across the Voyage family.
Rando Morgan
With a lot of hard work, ingenuity, sacrifice, and faith, I was able to survive with a benevolent leadership style, I surrounded myself with the right people, to pioneer new innovative methods and services to grow and evolve. Today, we are healthy and thriving as River Rangers International, Inc. This legacy will live on for many years, impacting the lives of future generations. Read more>>
Vanessa Rife
One quick step into a modern store and I see replication after replication of something made in the mid century. Of course, I prefer the original! The great stuff always comes back around. Perhaps one day, I’ll have a brick and mortar store but for right now I am throughly enjoying selling vintage through amazing platforms such as Etsy and Instagram. You can also find me at Eclectiques Antique Mall in Clintonville Ohio! My goal is that everyone can find an appreciation in vintage and hopefully fall in love! It feels great saving a treasure from the wastelands. Read more>>
Steve Del Gardo
I worked this foundation for 5 years until 2017. Afterwards, I decided I wanted to do something fun and amazing for the rest of my life. Something that brings joy to the World through my cooking and creativity. And Del Gardo’s Cannoli Bar became my brainchild. I started making cannoli flavors from the kitchen of my apartment in 2017, donating my cannoli creations to foundations in my area. After a year of testing the market, I decided on opening and brick/mortar location in Covington, Kentucky. I opened the shop with 50 flavors but now in 2025, I have over 250 flavors. For the past 7 years, I have served over 150.000 cannoli in the Greater Cincinnati area. And my goal is to do 500.000 by 2030. Read more>>
Adam Longacre
We wanted to make an impact in the community. Me, being a homebrewer and having a pipedream for years of owning a brewery…..it was a now or never type moment. And that is how it started. We purchased the old bowling alley downtown and repurposed it into UnHitched. And since we opened in 2019, it’s been a nice community hub. We were able to the old bowling alley which so may residents enjoyed of the years (opened in 1948), and create a new space for people to make make new memories in. Birthday parties, rehearsal dinners, sports banquets, you name it we done it. We have even hosted a few full weddings. Read more>>
Shaina Zimmerman
For a few years, I worked as an in-home dog trainer, traveling throughout the metro area to provide private lessons in clients’ homes. In 2016, I met renowned dog trainer Lisa Lucero at Denver Dog Dynamix, and I immediately knew I had found my “home.” I mentored under Lisa for eight years, managing the Dog Dynamix branch for much of that time before moving to Ohio in 2022. For two years, I operated Dog Dynamix Ohio as a satellite operation. Now fully settled in Ohio, I bring Up N Atom to the Cleveland metro area, backed by years of industry experience and a deep passion for helping dogs and their owners thrive. Read more>>
Tina Wene
The foundation was founded in the spring of 2020 after I lost my husband, Ray Wene, to Glioblastoma. Ray fought his brain cancer for 29 months, undergoing all standard treatments and trying to get into clinical trials. After his passing, my daughter, Ella, and I quickly realized we needed to do something meaningful in his honor. Ray was a person who deeply loved others and always wanted to give back, particularly to the brain tumor community. Read more>>
Riley Burke
These guys have put so much care and creativity into my music. I am humbled to have grown alongside them and so grateful to have them on this journey with me. We have grown our audience significantly in the past three years, playing many, many shows as Riley Burke Band in Youngstown, Kent, Akron, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Sandusky. We’ve made the most amazing, rewarding memories playing in bars, restaurants, people’s houses, on college campuses, and at festivals. This past summer, we played as a part of Cedar Point’s Bands in Residence program on the Cedar Point Beach, which has been my favorite experience performing my music so far. Read more>>
Lacole Suddeth
No it’s has not been I had the building for a whole year and a few months I had to replace fire hood suspension had to wait for permits,it went from a store front to a restaurant I had to get a architect that took time I reached out to so many people to do a new floor plan then, had to wait for the permits then had to have an fire inspection come and approve me after that the city, then county approval and health department approval and licensed it was most definitely a test for patience and understanding to have something successful you must go through all the important things to be great! Read more>>
Sharnise Sears
Then came the pandemic, which brought a whole new set of challenges. With in-person weddings on hold, I adapted by performing online ceremonies and “micro-weddings”, making sure couples could still say “I do” despite the circumstances. At the same time, my premarital and marriage coaching sessions skyrocketed—couples were home together more than ever, navigating new dynamics, and needed support. Balancing it all was overwhelming at times, but it reinforced my passion for not just weddings but for strong, lasting marriages. Read more>>
Abby Komar
Afterwards, I was able to start a new job at the Better Business Bureau of Canton and Greater West Virginia where I was the Marketing and Community Relations Specialist. I spent time in both Ohio and West Virginia planning community events, attending trade shows, and creating business relationships with all different types of people. Ultimately, I felt like I was spending too much time outside of my community and wished to get more involved in Canton. Read more>>
Gwen Brown
I contribute a good portion of the inventory through my own efforts. I carry a large selection of hand-dyed fibers for spinning and felting and a range of hand-dyed yarns. Additionally, I offer tools for spinning, weaving, felting, knitting, crochet and a few other yarn-related activities. I love notions, cute little things, and fun tools, so there are plenty of those too! Basically I stock whatever I find appealing, so if we have similar taste, you’ll be golden! It’s not a huge space, but I’ve crammed a lot of interesting things in there. Plus, I can help you on your journey through classes, both private and group, so you have no excuse not to try something new! Read more>>
China Darrington
Another challenge has been meeting the overwhelming demand for services. Our drop-in recovery center, which opened in January 2024, has been a lifeline for many, but we quickly realized the need to expand. Currently, we can accommodate 50 people, but we’ve opened our Summit Recovery Annex which doubled our space and allows us to bring over 100 people together at once for events. Balancing growth with maintaining the integrity of our services is a constant focus. Read more>>
Dom Cacho Jr
In 2022, ILTHY’s CEO, Kumar Arora, reached out and offered me an internship as their photographer and content creator. This gave me hands-on industry experience and new opportunities to refine my craft. By 2023, I was offered a full-time role at Kumar’s marketing agency, UNDERDOGS, where I expanded my work beyond ILTHY, creating content for other brands and growing faster than ever as a creative. Read more>>
Ellie Foster
Ellie: I had to learn. This girl was absolutely killing it on the dance floor at a music festival I was attending. Once I got home, I typed in “how to shuffle” on YouTube and I began to practice for hours and hours a week. I fell in love with the dance. At the time, I didn’t know any other shufflers in Cincinnati, so I started a Cincy shufflers Instagram page to connect the shuffle community. Read more>>
Lindsay Ivancic
I also saw another common frustration: the balancing act between writing content that’s optimized for search and writing content that actually resonates with people. Too often, businesses lean too far one way — either stuffing in keywords at the expense of clarity or crafting great content that never gets found. Read more>>
Radonna Reed
Ha! Definitely not always smooth. There’s so much I’ve had to learn on the fly or lessons I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve had to trust my intuition completely. For me, the biggest challenge is proving that tarot isn’t just a novelty but a transformative tool. Like I get it, it’s a fun activity to do on a whim and I totally encourage people to get their cards read at least once. What I want to scream from the rooftops though is the potential tarot has to radically change what we believe is possible for our lives. And with regular insight? It can open up pathways that actually *do* change our lives. So educating people, growing a meaningful and aligned client base, and navigating the ups and downs of business with integrity stays in my daily focus. Read more>>
Cody Messner
After high school, I went to college at the University of Akron, where I double majored marketing and sales, where I graduated with honors in 2015. During college I acquired a job working with developmentally disabled adults, where I still work part time, and have been there for 12 years now. While in college, I was torn between what I wanted to do, part of me wanted to purse powerlifting because I was at a high level. I was deadlifting only 10lbs under the world record at the time for my weight class, with bad form, and poor nutrition. So I knew I had a lot of room to grow, and at the same time, there was practically no money to be made in powerlifting, so I also wanted to pursue business, and work for marketing creating commercials for companies. Read more>>
Melissa Mitchell-Reynolds
Wanting to begin my passion for design, I enrolled into the International Academy of Hair Design in July of that year. Regrettably, that road led me to the point of falling victim to drug addiction, and that lasted for the next three years. This is where my true journey began. Cosmetology school was a real challenge for me, due to being actively addicted to drugs. It became more difficult each day to show up and be productive; always late or being a no-show. It was so bad, that one of my instructors even told me to quit school altogether. While it was a tough road, I fought with everything I had in me! Finally, after getting my life together, I graduated in early 2009! Read more>>
Adam Lonardo
Over the next decade, I worked tirelessly, holding two or three jobs at a time to support my family while growing BRS. Today, BRS is my sole focus, and we’ve expanded significantly. We now operate 10 recovery homes, providing stable housing for 24 women and 51 men, with an 11th home currently under construction to serve women with high-acuity mental health needs. Beyond housing, we offer peer support, case management, mental health counseling, and substance use disorder counseling to our residents. We’ve also partnered with Clubhouse International to run Youngstown’s local Clubhouse, offering a community-driven approach to mental health recovery. Where any individual with any level of mental health challenges can come and find community and purpose. Read more>>
Tytiuanna Henderson
I stopped officially working October 2024, so I started yet again. This time felt different when people were coming slowly but surely, recognizing my talent. It was one encounter I had after doing someone’s mother hair, who’s hair had not been done in a while. Her reveal was so wholesome she cried, which I didn’t expect but it clicked I have Gifted Hands. Ever since business has picked up, people tell me how much they love my work, how people recommended them to me, and my bookings are starting to accumulate over the past couple months. I never used to love what I do, honestly I am in love with it and I thank God for this gift. Read more>>
Ann Carpenter
When I started to expand my shop to include a curated selection of knitting notions- including designing my own line of knitting needles, I learned a lot about the process of product design & patience. It took a full year- filled with tons of back and forth to get my needles in hand, then I had to tackle pricing. Pricing is always a struggle for small businesses, and makers have to remember to pay themselves at a rate that is reasonable without pricing themselves out of the market, which is extremely hard these days. Read more>>
Zane Thayer Chris Raymond
This all started with a love for Cincinnati chili and sharing it with the people around us. After coming down to Cincy for school we both became engrossed with the recipe and agreed that we could put our own spin on it. After over a year of trial and error, we landed on our signature seasoning blend. As we shared our creation with friends and family, we had plenty of suggestions to let the people of Cincinnati try it themselves. To start 2024, we began selling at If We Die We Die Studios downtown at one of their open mic events. Our reception there led us to vend at other events around the city, such as Northside Shitshow and Nexus. Over the summer we had a huge event selling at a friend’s concert. From this we garnered new partnerships to vend at other events such as Flora and Flair in Mt Adams and Hifi for our 1 year anniversary. Read more>>
Fynn Rolston
My name is Fynn Rolston and I was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on April 17, 2007. My mum had me whilst attending the University of British Columbia for her masters, and my dad too for his Doctorate. I was only two when I moved for the first time, to Ithaca, New York after my mum decided to pursue a PhD at Cornell. With that being said, my family moved continuously for the majority of my childhood after that. Vancouver, Ithaca, Huddersfield (England), and Morgantown West Virginia. Though moving so frequently between the ages of 2-9 was extremely difficult, I like to credit it for a lot of who I am today. Read more>>
Kodachrome Babies
I picked up the guitar around 8th grade but didn’t start playing very seriously until Mallory took an interest in ukulele in 2009. That’s when we began playing together just for fun. Over time, friends and relatives began asking when they could see us play, and eventually we were offered actual gigs! Since then, we’ve played countless gigs and released three studio albums: “Developing” in 2015, “A Very Kodachrome Christmas” in 2016, and “The Simple Things” in 2024. In the fall of 2023, Mallory moved with her family to Cleveland, OH, which opened up new opportunities for us. We are now exploring this new scene and are excited about the possibilities! Read more>>
Brandon Schon
No it has been ups and downs. Started off training in a small barn with no equipment not making much money, then subleasing a gym and sharing the space with other trainers limited on space and equipment. Theres months business is very slow and some where we make more than expected. It’s a daily grind. Continuing to build the brand and business on social media is the hardest part because you want to just train not worry about social media but it’s how you help grow the business. Read more>>
Tina Pech
But if we’re being honest, the hardest part has been the financial side. Taking that leap of faith is never easy—especially when my husband quit his full-time job so we could fully pursue this dream. He used to work 50-60+ hours a week, which didn’t leave much time for family. Now, he still works just as much (maybe even more, haha), but the difference is we’re doing it together. Read more>>
Michael Stafford
By the time I transitioned into my 30s’, I decided to get therapy to help manage my mental health, which became the best decision that I have ever made because had the opportunity to be comfortable communicating my problems and authentic with no fear of judgement. It even lead me to build my faith and continue to build a relationship with God, which I do to this day. Because of the support of therapy and positive figures, I learned to take more responsibility for my mental/emotional behaviors and prioritize on tasks that would improve my quality of life later on. Now I live my life purposefully with the major desire of becoming the best version of myself that I could possibly be and inspiring others to do same for themselves. Read more>>
Eliah Smith
That’s one of my goals in my music is to be able to change lives and give people a sense of originality and give them a “breath of fresh air” as someone said to me once before I have accomplished about over 65-70,000 streams by myself and no team behind me I believe if I had the right team and people who believed fully and took time to help listen and critique the music with true genuine intentions. Read more>>
Chet Kastle
It hasn’t always been a smooth road. Like any small business, there have been challenges—learning to balance work and life, figuring out when to “clock out,” and accepting that growth takes time. Patience has been one of the hardest lessons, especially during slow seasons or moments of disappointment. Such as markets we thought were going to do well and turned out that we didn’t even make enough to pay for the registration. But it’s choosing to remain positive. Staying motivated through those times can be tough, but I remind myself why I started and focus on the progress I’ve made. Every challenge has been a learning experience, and each step forward makes the journey worthwhile. Read more>>
Carlos Nunez
My main goal in my professional live is to help those that are living in the streets with Hiv/ aids. I help them to develop self care, self confidence, confidence, self respect, self care. We also assist the. To get in care and stabilize them live with a job and an apartment for their own. Afterwards my focus is to follow up with them and help them archive their own goals in life. Read more>>
Lesley Sawhook
Being a travel professional is not an easy job. Our hours are very demanding and we work very hard without being paid until after our guests travel. I love what I do but it is a very challenging career. To be good at what we do we must travel often to different destinations to learn about the resorts, cruise ships, etc. all while maintaining our own clients and their needs. We work while traveling all of the time. Read more>>
Kai Tatyanna
After being natural for over a decade, I went through a period where my hair became severely damaged, ultimately leading me to do a big chop and start over. As a result, I relied on protective styles for several years. When I finally decided to embrace my natural hair again, I realized that I had grown uncomfortable wearing it in public—it had been so long since I’d worn it out that I no longer felt confident. Read more>>
Oleg Rudyy
We expanded into crafting cutting boards, charcuterie boards, serving trays, and coffee tables, selling them at local craft shows, exhibitions, and to family and friends. In fact, we believe we were one of the first to introduce epoxy resin serving trays, something that gained attention on Instagram and among other woodworkers. One of our videos even went viral, giving us a major boost in visibility. Read more>>
