Columbus, Ohio USA
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Newly Opened Just Cause Boutique
A harvest of hope for women in need

by Margaret Marten
March/April 2018 Issue

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Kelli Beightler, owner of Just Cause, a boutique gift shop funding her non-profit organization Let Her Rest Ministries, helping women caught up in human trafficking, abuse, addiction and life on the streets. Photo © Gus Brunsman III

Kelli Beightler’s inspiration for opening a gift shop last year came straight from the heart. After working more than a dozen years in outreach, helping women to get off the streets and into recovery, she resolved to find a more reliable source of income to support her non-profit organization, Let Her Rest Ministries.

The gift shop, Just Cause, launched last year in Bexley before moving in December to 1357 N. High St. – across from the Kroger store in the space vacated by Roots Records. The money from the retail business will benefit Beightler’s non-profit outreach and help to strengthen the women it serves – those caught up in human trafficking, abuse, addiction and life on the streets.

Beightler founded Let Her Rest Ministries in 2015 after years of outreach work in the faith-based community. Her journey began in 2004 helping the needy through Resurrection Outreach Ministries (later directing and developing other outreach efforts) where the charitable focus was initially on homelessness. However, after a few years, she began to notice a significant increase in women walking the streets and started to ask questions.

What she discovered was drug addiction, “trap houses,” and pimps. “It’s all over the city,” said Beightler. “Anytime you have to exchange sex for safety or food or shelter or drugs, that’s trafficking. Out here in Columbus, the trafficker is the dope dealer.”

In the summer of 2015, hoping to provide a safe harbor for these women, a place where they could count on emotional support and begin to turn their lives around, Beightler opened a drop-in center on Sullivant Avenue in Franklinton, a neighborhood often referred to as “ground zero” for prostitution and drugs. “We made the center a beautiful area,” she said, “kind of like a living room, a little kitchen, a clothing room, and we reached out to the people who had an interest in helping, and opened the doors and the girls started pouring in. It was word of mouth, just like the drug houses.”

Beightler and a team of volunteers ran the center for almost two years. One thing that became clear to her throughout that experience was “addiction is untreated trauma.” “Trafficking is a result of way back when their trauma met that drug,” she explained. They medicate so they don’t feel the pain.

The mission of the walk-in on Sullivant was to get the women off the streets and into treatment – in addition to providing comfort and trust. However, a gap existed where the drugs were concerned because the women had to be off the drugs before entering treatment, noted Beightler.

The ministry naturally began to focus on that problem and eventually developed a holistic detox kit with essential oils called the Three Step Project, which they continue to use and share with other ministries through training. “72 hours is about the protocol for detox,” she said. And through her experience with these women, Beightler found that the process helped to alleviate the majority of the opioid withdrawal symptoms. “It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like they didn’t have any symptoms at all, but it worked.”

Work in progress

Essential oils are one of the many wonderful products available at Just Cause boutique. Handmade sugar and salt scrubs, natural nail varnish, shaving and hair products and items for children and infants stock the shelves and displays. There are cards, candles, books, journals, purses, sunglasses, jewelry and clothing in a variety of styles for women and babies. Home décor and kitchenware include candles, mugs, tea cups, kettles, and infusers, as well as David’s Teas, tea drops, coffee, and raw honey. Cacti and other healthy looking plants share the sunny space near the entrance. The shop also sells Sallye Ander handmade hypoallergenic skincare products.

Like any retail store, Just Cause is a work in progress. In Bexley, they outgrew their small space selling mostly handmade items. “It became a desired place to shop for the community because they knew the proceeds were going toward helping these womens’ recovery,” said Beightler. Now with an expanded product line, popups, and partnership with an in-house graphic design firm offering screen printing, embroidery, and vinyl press for custom-made products, their ability to offer help to these women has grown.

“We are the fishermen,” she said. “We catch them, we bring them into believing that they are worth saving, and from there we’ve learned to reach out to the community.” Beightler’s homelife in Bexley, her role as a wife, mother, and grandmother and the responsibilities that entails make her enterprise in both business and ministry seem daunting. Yet, she’s a mover and a doer, she says, and part of that is building relationships. “I feel like we can help any woman in any area of her life because that’s the resources we’ve gathered along the way.”

Just Cause is located at 1357 N. High St. across from the Kroger store. Visit the Just Cause Facebook page or call 614-530-2746 for more information. Hours are Tuesday and Wednesday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

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