CarryON! helps the homeless with criminal backgrounds get on their feet again, according to a director at Boston's St Francis House. For homeless men and women with a history of incarceration who want to break away from government handouts, there's CarryON, a new business that employs guests of St Francis House.

CarryON recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to build their business and have opened their doors to the public at the Summer Street Art Market at Downtown Crossing on Mondays and Wednesdays into September. We caught up with Fred Smith, one of the project’s founders and the Development Director of St Francis House, whose mission is to provide skills and job opportunities to the homeless.

What is the business?
We take discarded burlap coffee sacks, canvas materials, and surplus canvas from an awning company and other remnant fabrics and we then put together the bags. One of the issues is handles—leather is too expensive—and so two or three guys are learning the inkle loom. We have a small workshop at St. Francis House with three looms where they make straps. [We] haven’t manufactured any yet but we are in the process of doing so. One woman involved isn’t well enough to sew but she is creating designs and putting them on small postcards and we will be incorporating the designs in the bags.

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