Duck Dynasty star Missy Robertson never saw herself advocating for women whose lives had been thrown off-track by sex trafficking, homelessness and addiction, but she says that’s just where God led her through her Laminin jewelry line.
While in the midst of filming the A&E reality show centered around her family with husband Jase Robertson, Missy told PopCulture.com she was approached by a friend about getting into the fashion industry, but turned down the offer — at first.
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“After three times of [the offer] hitting me in the face, I thought, ‘Maybe God’s wanting me to do something that’s outside of my comfort zone,’” she recalled.
Initially, the mother-of-three planned to use her business to provide opportunity to “women like [her],” who didn’t necessarily have a college degree but needed to work to support their families while also raising them.
“That never happened,” she told PopCulture with a laugh. “We didn’t even hire one person that fit that description.”
Instead, she found herself hiring women recovering from drug addiction, who had been imprisoned or victims of sex trafficking — those “in need of a new purpose.”
“God just started bringing people to me,” she explained. “From the beginning, it took a turn. It was deeper and more risky, I’ll say that.”
Drawing on her “church family” to help provide advice and counseling in how to work with women recovering from trauma, Missy admitted getting closer to the women she employed “opened [her] eyes” to the dark reality for many women, forcing her outside her “sheltered Christian background.”
“It’s a lot of daily mental hardship that they have to go through,” she said, adding that while they might not have similar life paths, “Women are women no matter what. We all go through things in our lives, but there’s a commonality of wanting to be valuable, be useful, and be good mothers. … That just looks different to most women.”
Not only does Laminin provide its employees with a steady pay check, Missy added, but it also gives them a support system, sense of pride and marketable skills moving forward.
“We’re walking with them through parenting, through choosing men, through trying to figure out where they fit in terms of their worth in this world,” she said. “It may not be in mass droves, but we’re helping women who come here one at a time.”
Laminin isn’t about handouts, Missy clarified, but people looking to support the women and business moving forward can purchase jewelry from her line here.
Photo credit: MissyRobertson.com
