Telling Misty Ullrich’s story is like opening an overstuffed suitcase. Once the latches are undone, you can’t believe how much is inside. If her story was just about her costume jewelry business, The Mod Miss, headquartered in Paris, Arkansas, it would be simple enough. But The Mod Miss is just the beginning of Misty’s journey.
It starts like this. In 2014, the stay-at-home mom of three saw a necklace she liked and decided to make it herself. So off Misty went, driving an hour to get to Hobby Lobby in Fort Smith. She made the necklace, then made others, which she gave to family. Her family posted photos on social media, and wanna-be customers came out of the woodwork.
What do you do when people want to help you turn your hobby into a business? You say yes. So, Misty did, often meeting customers in the Hobby Lobby parking lot to make the exchange. With new money in hand, she’d go back inside the craft store to purchase her next raft of supplies.
Misty had so little money for The Mod Miss that her sister Crystal, the woman she calls her rock, lent her four hundred dollars. Misty paid it back in two weeks. Crystal encouraged her to consider selling wholesale. And Misty, without a business class to her name, picked up her phone and Googled “What is Wholesale and How Does It Work?”
In 2018, after years of growth, she bought a sturdy white building not far from Paris’ town square, where The Mod Miss is now headquartered. Her jewelry, gorgeous necklaces and bracelets made from exquisite leathers, sparkling rhinestones, beautiful beadwork in a multitude of colors and patterns, is in seven boutiques, from Paris to Ozark to Fort Smith to Van Buren. From Fayetteville and Springdale to Branson, Missouri. Her website continues to gain attention. Her children are now nine years of age, thirteen, and sixteen. And her husband, a cowboy she met when she was seventeen, whose horse caught Misty’s eye before he did, is still the love of her life.
That’s as much of that story as you’ll hear. Because Misty’s bio now turns from business to a story that’s less mod and more God.
“In 2018, I dedicated my business to God. From that time forward, I never worried about theft. I never worried about who to hire,” Misty says. “He was the boss, and He would tell me what to do. It relieved so much stress because if The Mod Miss wasn’t mine, it wasn’t mine to worry about.
“I was asking the Lord, ‘Who do you want me to hire to help with all this?’ And He showed me this lady’s face. I didn’t know her that well, and I knew she’d once had an addiction problem.”
The woman Misty saw in her mind’s eye was Roxie Campbell, a server at a local barbeque restaurant and a sometimes-attendee of Misty’s church. “I said to God, ‘Okay, if you really want me to hire her, she’ll be at church on Sunday.’ I knew she wouldn’t be there because she normally worked on Sunday—my family and I went to that restaurant most Sundays after church.
“Come to find out, Roxie’s boss told her on Saturday night that she could go to church the next morning. So, I’m sitting in my pew, and in comes Roxie. I’d never spoken to her before, but I went up to her and I said, ‘Hey, Roxie, are you looking for a part-time job?’”
Roxie took the job on the spot. “Working with your hands, making jewelry, is really therapeutic. You’re talking, you’re getting to know each other,” Misty says.
At that time, Misty says she lived in a bubble. Paris was her perfect hometown. Misty grew up in church, in a family that thrived on helping others. She went to the rodeo, to high school games, rode horses. It was idyllic.
Roxie had seen another side of Paris and talked about it to Misty. “Every once in a while, you’d see someone on the street and you’d think drugs, but then you’d just go on your way, self-absorbed. That was the closest I got,” Misty says. “I learned about the drug use at that time—I wouldn’t say it’s like that now—in a certain part of Paris. You could feel the darkness. You could feel the oppression.”
While the two women were working, Misty noticed Roxie having difficulty seeing. She was wearing dollar-store glasses, but they obviously weren’t enough. So Misty asked if she had prescription eyeglasses, and Roxie told her she didn’t have the money for them.
“Immediately, God said, ‘Buy her glasses.’” Misty’s gut reaction was no. “I’d bought my first pair of prescription glasses two weeks before, and they’d been expensive. I was pretty selfish at the time. Payday came, and the Lord reminded me again. So, I thought on it and thought on it. Then God said, ‘If you allow her to see, I’ll allow you to see.’ And that was not a physical promise—I could see—it was about the spirit.
“We literally locked the door, went across the street, and bought her glasses. And let me tell you, it was like the selfish blinders fell off my eyes.”
Because of Roxie, Misty experienced the other side of Paris. The town is small, with approximately 3,000 residents. It sits at the foot of Mount Magazine, the highest peak in the state. It is both a place of beauty and one of need.
Of course, Misty shared her concerns with her sister Crystal. Roxie was already aware. Another local woman, Debbie Humphries, got involved. They decided to start making lunch one day a week. They invited women who seemed vulnerable. They held a Bible study during that one hour.
When it was time to hire other employees at The Mod Miss, Misty welcomed women who were facing trials of one kind or another.
The group of women had identified addiction as a pressing problem. Another issue was hunger. “There was a large family living in a shed behind a house. And I thought, Oh my goodness, there are kids without a home, without food. Then we started a lunch program in the summer. We would close our jewelry-making down, set up folding tables, and make sack lunches. Roxie and I drove around and started feeding kids.” This summer, they served fifty-six children.
“Everything that came in through sales at The Mod Miss would pay for employees and our products. But then the other money would go out into the community.”
The four women: Misty, Roxie, Crystal, and Debbie, started calling themselves the Haven of Hope Ministry, and in 2020, they officially opened a non-profit under that name.
Today, The Mod Miss continues to do well, although Misty said it’s experiencing a slowdown of late. She’s not particularly worried since she knows it’s in God’s hands.
There is now the Haven of Hope resale shop in town “just down the street and across from the Eifel Tower” that’s used to bring in money for the charity. Clothes are also given to schoolkids and those who’ve endured a catastrophe, such as a house fire.
This fall and next spring, Haven of Hope is offering an eight-week Wednesday after-school program for both girls in Paris’ Middle School and boys from the fourth to seventh grades. A donated van picks the kids up. Mentors keep them for three hours, feeding them, teaching them life skills like cooking, budgeting, car repair, camping.
Between The Mod Miss and Haven of Hope resale shop, eight women are employed. The program works like this. The women have one year to be mentored, sent to conferences like Dave Ramsey’s financial seminars, and, of course, hold down their jobs. After that, Misty and her team help them transition to another job in the community. Already, one former employee has a housekeeping business; another has a photography studio, and a third works in the school cafeteria.
Haven of Hope also works with the drug court system and the parole office, helping women figure out how to have a happy, successful future. “A lot of the time, when people are struggling with addiction, they’ve created this huge mess through their choices. If we can pull one string at a time, figure it out, and piece it back together, we can help them work it out.”
The non-profit works with HUD on housing and will reach out to the community to find things like couches or kitchen tables to set them up.
Why was Misty singled out? She says it’s because she bought Roxie’s eyeglasses. Because she was willing to listen to God, an entire hurting world became visible to her. And because she had faith, Misty, the original Mod Miss, says she’s living her best, blessed life.
The Mod Miss jewelry is available in Fort Smith at Brick City, and in Van Buren at Main Street Mercantile. You can also buy online at themodmiss.com. Find Haven of Hope Ministry on Facebook, or email havenofhope2911@gmail.com.
