The 26-year-old with Down syndrome from Minnetonka, Minnesota, started creating custom greeting card kits and selling them just over a month ago.
So far, it’s been a huge success.
Rudick met her mentor Karen Titus, from Richfield, Minnesota, a year ago through a day program for adults with developmental disabilities. Titus, who has been teaching card-making and scrapbooking for 17 years, decided to take Anna under her wing. As her business mentor, Titus helped Rudick to create a business of her own, and in the process the two became close friends.
“She has opened her house and given her time just for the joy of working with Anna,” Susan Rudick, Anna’s mother, told the press. “Truly the joy of giving at its finest.”
Over the last month Anna’s Card Kits haave done very well. Anna has an assembly line system set up for creating the kits of Titus’s cards, so that she can quickly fill all the orders.
Rudick, who has been doing arts and crafts projects since she was three, said that her favorite part of the business is “meeting people, smiles and hugs.” She also said that the owl card is her favorite.
Susan’s mother, said her daughter is learning valuable lessons by running a business, including where to spend her hard-earned cash.
“Anna is learning that all the money she make\s does not need to be spent on sodas,” Susan Rudick said. “She loves to give some of the money to the non-profits of her choice.”
When asked if she had any advice to offer other people interested in starting a card business, Susan Rudick had some sound wisdom to give– “do what you like most.”