Hidden Gems: Meet Amby Lewis of Queen City Teas and Steams & A Girl Like Me Network

Today we’d like to introduce you to Amby Lewis.

Hi Amby, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Hi, I got started in business probably in 2018. I was a certified event planner to begin with. I lead planning events and making people’s ideas come to service, and in the fall of 2018, I was asked to do a community event, which was awesome. It was for gun violence because my son’s dad was shot earlier that year. He’s paralyzed. I want it to start changing the whole narrative in my life. I have three kids. In how society is set up, you deafly want to be the perfect role model for your children.

The opportunity to set up that event opened doors for me to do a couple of other events and then start public speaking about my experience with gun violence. I just got it. As you know, all went crazy from there. If I were Paradis, I started doing women’s apartment branches, my events, and gathering women in the community, and it was always a big hit like once a month would do. Braces have 5 to 7 speakers who speak about what they do, and I study these ladies like I come from the streets and never grew up around scholars. I never had anyone with goals around me, so it made it easy for me to absorb everything. I was in my learning phase in 2019, and it was amazing. Then Covid hit in 2020, and he said everyone was down; it was a scary time.

No one knew what would happen in the world. It was scary, and everyone was getting sick, and then you have personal experiences with friends. You lose some people, and you gain some people into me. It was like God was doing an eye-opening thing for me, sending me down the isolating from people, and I prayed a lot. I did, I indeed truly did, and one day or night. I was sleeping in; believe it or not, God gave me a vision. I was on a mission. It was you’re going to start a nonprofit, and you’re going to become an herbalist. I woke up like crazy like it didn’t happen; the next thing I knew, I had just started writing a business plan for my nonprofit and studied my herbs. I got my herbal license in 2020 during COVID-19, so I got that before I even started a nonprofit. So, I have two businesses with me: a nonprofit and a profitable business. It was super crazy for me. I didn’t know, so I started gathering the teams of people that I knew some associates, and then I bought December 10, 2020, out of my first board meeting and when we started that board meeting, we had five board members and like five dollars in our name for the nonprofit.

I ended up getting my $25 ticket. I will never forget that, and I went up there with my Treasure to get that going in 2021. I have my first nonprofit event for girls, and so I knew that I wanted to make sure I change the outlook for my family; I didn’t want anyone to judge me, but I had to be super honest like that was one of the things in business or life anyways, when you’re trying to tell your story, you always be honest yeah, I know from dating dope dealers to my mom and in and out of prison, my dad not being around. It was just constant things that put you in a position to make sure you are a strong leader, and you always have to be super transparent with your followers. It was my first official week; did you know I wanted to focus on our youth after doing Women Empowerment events? Women got it; if anything, it let me know, lead the children of the future, so that’s what we did. And the first event was magnificent. I was so proud of it; we had all types of swag merchandise. When building a business, you want to find people who can do this printing material, and Whoopty was great. I started being asked to be a speaking engagement, hosted table talks, and started our mentorship and Mentorship programs.

The first year was scary because we knew we wanted to do a mentorship, but we didn’t know exactly what we wanted and surely got it. So, we focus on stem preparation, youth, leadership, ship, and life skills. I think it’s so important because these children are our future and will grow old and die. They will be left to take care of our world, And it just makes sense to me, so I hustle hustle hustle with this organization for the whole year 2021, and I put my tea company on the back burner. I never left it, but it got a bit of a put on the back burner in 2022. That’s when I focused on the tea company and the nonprofit.

The tea company launched in March 2022, and I was also awarded by Springfield Business Journals 40 under 40 as one of their thriving community leaders. It was the most rewarding feeling ever beyond, you know, starting the nonprofit and having these girls come to me everywhere I go in this. Things started just being grade U. Now, my goal is to change the future, and then in 2023, earlier this year, I opened another location in Fulton, Missouri. I aim to open my nonprofit in several different state cities and eventually be global. It will take time, but patience, dedication, structure, and understanding about who you are and your goal. You have a solid infrastructure to do any of this, so that’s it.

Alright, let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what challenges have you had to overcome?
It has never been a smooth road when you’re advertising or just a business. Because I have a nonprofit too, and I work with youth girls and college girls on college students anyway, it’s just never easy; you have challenges; you know you have to go through the policies and procedures, you know, trying to get your business up off the ground whenever you don’t have a whole lot of funding. Hence, I do a lot of online orders or attend events as a vendor to promote the tees I make in my services. Therefore, it’s just never easy. There are always challenges, and sometimes people ask questions you may not know, but that’s where it gets fun if you want to go back and get the answer so the next time someone asks you something, boom there, it is just never easy.

We’re big fans of Queen City Teas and Steams & A Girl Like Me Network. What can you tell our readers who might not be as familiar with the brand?
As an entrepreneur, I have two businesses: a tea company, my profit business, Queen City Teas and Steams LLC here in Missouri, and my nonprofit, a girl like me and Network. My tea company is currently online, and we do mobile services for the Yanni Steam in part; I attend events to promote the tea company and have my tea in a store in downtown Springfield, Missouri. It’s going great. I know that I can always do better and can’t wait to see better when it comes. My nonprofit, A Girl Like Me Network, is going great. We just opened our second location in Missouri to have Springfield and Fulton, Missouri. It’s wonderful we focus on stem preparation youth leadership in life skills for girls 11 to 19; we have college mentors, and we partner with the colleges for their service learning skills, which has been a great collaboration for our organization. We have several partnerships throughout the state that allow Mya to explore different businesses. We have taken the girls to the capital, and we’ve taken them to the Boeing aircraft space center. It’s been amazing; we will continue growing throughout the state. I’m focusing, hopefully on Kansas City, Missouri, to open up our next location and Joplin, Missouri, hopefully in the Boot Hill area too; we’re always looking for volunteers and new board members to push on our mission and continue supporting us. This will grow to be international, which I do know.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My childhood was crazy, and my memories were not the greatest. That let me into the business I’m in now with my nonprofit; we moved around a lot. My mom was in and out of prison, my dad was nowhere around me, and my siblings were separated on multiple occasions. Then, I eventually separated from the age of 17 until I was 19 or 20. So when it comes to the members of the child hen, it was like, I guess my greatest memory was when I graduated; my brother, who passed away earlier this year, was there to cheer me on; that was the only sibling I had available there. And he’s always been one of those. Tell me that I had it no matter what. Enter, and never worry about what people say.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.aglmn.org
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/official_aglmn?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialAGLMN?mibextid=9R9pXO
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amby-lewis-254205118