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Girls learn that good business
includes charity at The Spirit Goat
BUBBLES: Brooke
Jacobsen, 10, and her sister Tyler, 8, proudly display
the snowman and reindeer holiday soaps made in the family's
business, Spirit Goat. / Photo by Kelsey Koenen
By Kelsey Koenen
November 26, 2007 | NIBLEY -- Hubert Humphrey once
said, "We are in danger of making our cities places
where business goes on but where life, in its real sense,
is lost." This may be true in some places, but in Nibley
two little girls have managed to protect and develop
both.
"We're quite the industrious group down in Nibley,"
Rae Ann Reed, Nibley resident, said.
Taylor Jacobsen, 10, and Brooke Jacobsen, 8, help
their mother Becky Yeager run a soap-making kitchen
in their own home on a daily basis -- after their homework
is done, of course.
Recently Yeager held a Christmas Open House displaying
dozens of soaps and lotions in multiple scents produced
in her home business, The
Spirit Goat.
Brooke and Taylor's most recent goal was the Open
House's highlight: small crafted reindeer and snowmen
made only from soap. The snowmen are done in a peppermint,
lemon, and rosemary scent while the reindeer are cranberry
orange with glitter. These two sisters do all of the
work to put them together, and donate 10 percent of
the proceeds to two charities that they have each chosen.
Taylor does the snowmen and chose to donate to Common
Ground, a charity to help the disabled.
"Because one of my best friends is handicapped," Taylor
said.
Taylor has "a knack for the disabled and special needs
kids," Yeager said.
Brooke is in charge of the reindeer and the proceeds
go to Ryan's Well. Brooke explained that they have "raised
money to make a well in Africa."
Yeager allowed her only two children to choose the
charities themselves. "You want your charity to be something
you're passionate about," she said.
Yeager has been in the soap business for five years
now. Most of her products are wholesale and go to locally
run stores such as Sweet Pea.
This small home-run business began when Yeager realized
her two daughters reacted badly to store-bought soap.
Ever since the skin rashes Taylor and Brooke would develop,
Yeager made the soap herself and the business just continued
to blossom.
Yeager also has a charity she donates to every year:
the Children's Justice Center for abused children. For
every bottle of lotion that Yeager sells $1 is given
to the Justice Center.
Yeager explained that now her daughters look at pricing
and business differently. They understand the significance
of money and how it's related to hard work. Taylor and
Brooke are encouraged to put 80 percent in the bank
for college, then a portion goes to charity, and the
rest is up to them.
"It's a good thing to teach them," Yeager said.
Neighbors and clients were flowing through at Yeager's
open house, while Taylor and Brooke were in charge of
the nursery for kids waiting on their moms, 6 years
and under. The house was packed with thick aromas of
new soaps.
Yeager's next step is considering leasing or building
a property in January to continue this exciting new
trade.
"I think what they're doing is fabulous," Jill Trace,
friend and neighbor, said.
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