Downtown Belleville Women’s Business Collective

06/11/2020

Sharing this updated list of Belleville Area Black-Owned Businesses from another page. When you visit and support small businesses, make sure you check in or tag their pages so that you can help businesses advertise as well! 

Sheet1 Industry,Business,Locations,Website,Phone Number,Facebook Restaurant,Sip & Chew Express ,124 W Main St, Belleville, IL 62220,sipchew.com,(618) 641-9400,https://www.facebook.com/SiP-...

05/29/2020

Wow! Two of our women owned businesses hit the news tonight! And the second, Renae Eichholz of Copper Fire Bar and Eatery!

05/28/2020

Wow! Two of our women owned businesses hit the news tonight! First - Andria Maggio Powell of Circa Boutique and Gifts. (Sorry I only caught the second half of your spot!)

04/30/2020

Here’s a great piece featuring a hardworking Mother + Daughter duo!!
Local Lucy's is a brick and mortar Children's Boutique and gift shop located on Main Street in beautiful downtown Belleville, IL. Our doors opened on July 5, 2012 and we have never looked back.

Owned by Nancy Schulte & Christy Vineyard, a mother/daughter team, the shop was named after Christy's daughter Lucy and is stocked with handmade items by "Local" vendors. During these crazy times Local Lucy's can be found on Facebook and Instagram where custom items can still be ordered.

Our vendors range in age and abilities making us capable of creating nearly anything you need. We have embroidery available for both in house items and your favorite blanket or jacket.

04/21/2020

Since 2006, Conni Tilley has owned and operated Rising Stars, two blocks to the west side of the downtown square. The Reichert Building was purchased by the family to house her store and the upstairs AIRBNB but quickly became a multi-year labor of love. Restoration of this 1879 French Second Empire Building back to its original glory hasn’t been easy but worth every minute. In February 2020, she opened Venue on Main, offering a unique blend of historical and modern charm which adds a unique character that no other space can replicate. The space is used to host baby and wedding showers, birthday parties, wine tastings and music events.

Instead of giving up during COVID, she is doubling down on this building. Beginning in June, she is opening another sister space to host a little larger crowd. “We can host between 50-75 people in each space and 125 combined”. As a long time woman owned business, she wants to give back to other women owned businesses by partnering with pop up shops, yoga, painting or other businesses that need a space to showcase their products and potentially help them live their dream. For more information, you can follow Venue om Main on Facebook or email us at [email protected]

04/20/2020

Hello! Thank you for following our page! We started this page with the intentions of highlighting and sharing the backgrounds and stories of the ladies owning businesses in the downtown Belleville area. We started off with a bang, but the Covid-19 situation really took the momentum out of the beginning stages of what we had planned. Many of us have been scrambling to accept and adjust to this. Some of us have taken on teaching kiddos at home as well as running the households while we focus on changing the way we do business. But, none of us are strangers to being creative and re-inventing our wheels in order to keep them spinning. Some of us are working remotely, have spent the last few weeks building or growing our websites in order to expand offerings for delivery or curbside pickups. Some of us are totally wrecking our locations and tackling long awaited projects, in order to re-open with fresh looks and new layouts! Anyway, we are finding the positives in what we have been dealt, and some of the biographies coming your way will share these stories too! Please stay tuned and enjoy reading a bit behind the scenes of your local businesses!!

03/12/2020

Happy Thursday BELLEVILLE! Here is a little bit of background info on a fantastic organization right here in Downtown Belleville. Make plans to join TOCO Shop Belleville and Seven Belleville on Saturday, March 28 for Herstory Weekend!! EDITED NOTE: This event has been postponed due to social distancing.

Kim Vrooman is the Founder of Tapestry of Community Offerings, TOCO Textile Pantry and Shop on 825 West Main St.TOCO Shop offers quality clothing for the entire family from favorite designers at unbeatable prices! The Shop also serves the community as a pantry. Through referrals from schools, churches, and social service agencies, TOCO provides free clothing, shoes, and housewares to children and families when they need it most.
In addition to serving TOCO not for profit for the past 18 years, KIm also currently serves as Director of Communications for the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois. She is a working mother with a heart of service whose parents taught her that service to others is the primary purpose of human existence. She leads through serving and helping others to follow their dreams and is currently the President of TOCO Board of Directors. She also serves as the President of the Board of Directors for the Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Meridian Society: a women’s philanthropy organization inspiring women to become leaders in supporting higher education and community causes.
The Shop Manager and Pantry Director is Maura McCoy. Maura was born and raised in Belleville,IL. She spent 15 years living in the desert southwest. She has been married for 20 years and has 2 children. Maura studied Interior Design at The Art Institute of Houston. She has worked at several Not For Profits through the years and says that, “TOCO is her favorite job because it combines her love and compassion for people and reselling, thrifting, recycling, art, organizing and volunteering which have always been her strenghths and part of her core values.”
The Director of Community of TOCO NFP is Christine Higdon. Christine is a mother of two and has been a member of Tapestry of Community Offerings for 10 years. She has served on the board several years and chaired many committees. Within her new role as Community Director she handles all Events and Fun.

03/05/2020

This!! 👏👏👏

03/04/2020

We are happy to present our first biography! Renae Eichholz of Precision Practice Management, Inc. and Copper Fire Bar and Eatery:

Renae Eichholz is the Founder, President and Co-Owner of Precision Practice Management, Inc. (PPM) Renae started her career in 1986 working at a legal and real estate firm for 3 years and obtained her Missouri Real Estate License. However, she dreaded the daily drives to St. Louis and decided to find employment in IL and near her home. Her passion became healthcare and specifically revenue cycle management as she began working in physician practices and learned every aspect of a medical practice. She became a Certified Procedural Coder in 1991 and ran the revenue cycle for a 4 physician Orthopedic practice for 3 years. She founded Precision in 1993 and has essentially served every role in the company. She has 30 years of experience and her current role and responsibilities are overseeing operations and the executive team that maintains client relations. Renae has been innovative and forward thinking and took the business from a one-physician consulting practice to $1M+ revenue cycle business which served as a hosted server model for physician offices and hospitals before partnering with a technology company and her current partners 17+ years ago. Her most recent role change is that she was made President of PPM and helps run this National Organization and its 260+ employees/2500+ medical providers.
Even though her passion became healthcare, she has always loved real estate and property management. Renae and her husband are part-owners in three buildings. Two buildings in IL are both located in Downtown Belleville. The 218 West Main Street building is 40,000+ square feet, is her Precision Headquarters and home to nearly 150 of her employees, has been nearly completely renovated and the Main Street façade was restored to its original, historic appearance several years ago. Renae and her husband, Mark also own a 4 story, 25,000 square foot building located at 200 East Main Street. They recently renovated the entire first floor and opened their first restaurant, Copper Fire, March, 2018. The third building is located in Creve Coeur, MO, is approximately 20,000 square feet and is an additional Precision location and home to close to 75 employees.
Renae is active in her community and has served on the Board, invested and been a Mentor for Belleville CEO, an entrepreneurship program for high school seniors. She is also an active participant in the Belleville Chamber of Commerce, Belleville Main Street, Belleville’s Historic Society and Belleville’s Art on the Square.

03/04/2020

Hello! Thank you for helping us reach over 200 likes in just a few short hours! Just want to take a quick second to post about us and what we are. As a fairly new community organization, we thought it would be fun, and intentional, to start spreading the word about our mission during Women's History Month! Many, many female entrepreneurs and family businesses have been here all along, and we simply want to highlight the vast variety and concentration of them in our area! We will periodically be posting brief bios on women entrepreneurs downtown. We hope you enjoy a bit of background about these women and what they do in our community!

Please read:
We are a group of female business owners in the downtown Belleville area. We would like to highlight and draw attention to downtown Belleville, as a unique and thriving location for female entrepreneurs! We believe our position offers another facet of what makes Belleville stand out as a great place to live, work, and play!! We are looking to grow this group as a means of support and information for anyone contemplating starting a business here, while promoting our current BRICK and MORTAR offices, services, retail and restaurants!