Jaber Soul Boutique using new location to give back to those in need

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - From the outside, Jaber Soul looks like a typical boutique. But once you get inside the shop, you find out its goal is anything but typical.

”'Jaber’ means ‘beautiful’ in one of the African tribal languages. So we are ‘beautiful soul’ or ‘Jaber soul.’ And we do missions work in Kenya and all of our profits go towards those missions,” manager Brianna Grimsley said.

Owner Leah Hofer decided to open the boutique after going on what she calls a “life-changing” mission trip to Kenya with her daughter.

”I like to stay in nice hotels here, but over there it’s rooms with dirt floors and bugs and thin walls, but just beautiful people, though, with amazing culture and the women over there do so much with so little,” Hofer said.

After seeing the jewelry the Kenyan women were making, Hofer got the idea to sell their items in Sioux Falls, then use the profits to help with projects in the area.

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Over the last two years, the boutique has been able to sponsor several children, help send medicine to an orphanage in the area, and is now saving money to help set up a maternity ward at a hospital on the Kenya-Tanzania border.

”They built this clinic and now they are working on a maternity ward, raising funds for a birthing center, and that will help so many women have a wonderful place to give birth and be taken care of,” Hofer said.

The boutique recently moved to a much bigger location where they aim to sell even more items for women around the world this holiday season.

”We sell stuff from Nepal, India, Ecuador and then we some in the United States like Texas, Indiana, Colorado,” Hofer said.

Jaber soul is located next to Applebee’s inside the Empire Mall. It opens at 10:00 a.m. Monday through Saturday and noon on Sundays.

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