The Beading Project
A training program rooted in creativity and dignity.
An initiative of Priest Family Revival, supported by the Antelope Foundation
The Beading Project is a workforce initiative created by the brand Priest Family Revival that trains, supports, and employs women in the community to create handcrafted beaded jewelry for the brand.
The program employs women in transition — post-incarceration, without housing, or living in a shelter — to create handcrafted jewelry and heritage goods.
Participants are trained in beadwork and paid a dignified wage, defying Idaho's low minimum wage, with access to a unique opportunity.
The Challenge
Women in America experience poverty at a much higher rate than men. Children are the most impoverished demographic, and women raise the majority of them. Many women experience homelessness, incarceration, and domestic violence because of systemic poverty.
Post-incarceration, women face barriers to employment, housing, and financial stability. Without meaningful work, recidivism risk rises and economic instability persists. Most available jobs are low-wage, unstable, and disconnected from identity or purpose.
Beading as a Solution
Beading is found across most world cultures and time — an art form roughly 100,000 years old (beads were once currency), and in many traditions a spiritual practice. Craft and art regulate the nervous system and build focus, patience, and tranquility. Priest Family's beading program provides opportunity, community, fair-wage employment, and a supportive environment; participants learn beadwork techniques and produce pieces integrated into Priest Family Revival's product line. This would create:
Dignified, paid work for women rebuilding their lives.
A low-barrier reentry path for women in Idaho.
Creative and technical skills that carry forward.
Confidence, stability, and a renewed sense of self.
An ethical, craft-based employment model others can adopt.
Reducing recidivism through training, vision, and inspiration.
Join Us
We're seeking funding and community partners to launch the first pilot cohort, in collaboration with shelters and reentry programs — building a working model that delivers training, fair-wage employment, a supportive creative environment, and a storytelling bridge between artisan and customer. Let's do this together.