Hocking Hills Garment Center weaves jobs, sustainability into Southeast Ohio

Athens native Betsy Franjola repurposed a decommissioned Catholic church in Buchtel, Ohio, into the Hocking Hills Garment Center, a sustainable, community-oriented manufacturing facility.

The center opened in October 2024 with Franjola’s idea to help create meaningful jobs in the community.

Franjola has over 20 years of experience in the industry, starting her career in print and fabric development working for brands such as The Limited and Tommy Hilfiger.

“I loved fabric development,” Franjola said. “I loved that combination of creativity and the technical side of things, and then you kind of layered in the strategy of timing and logistics.”

Franjola’s first business, BFF Studio, is based in Los Angeles. It partners with 200 fashion brands’ creative and product development teams to help them source and develop fabric from about 12 different fabric makers worldwide.

From there, Franjola launched her second business PREFACE, a small trade show dedicated to promoting innovation in the textile industry. She said she got the idea to start HHGC after a conversation with her friend about poverty in Athens.

“She said to me, ‘I just don’t understand. These people need jobs, and there is funding to bring industry back to this region, but no one is doing it,’” Franjola said.

Franjola and her husband bought a box truck, which they called Large Marg. They filled it with donated fabric from a friend and personal belongings and drove it from LA to Ohio to start HHGC. She said transforming the church into a functioning factory presented challenges, including upgrading the building’s energy efficiency.

“It's hard as a startup, and it's hard being in a 150-year-old building to do that out of the gate, but that's also part of our plan for the long term, is seeing how our facility can also be more sustainable and energy efficient,” Franjola said. 

As part of the transformation, the building required a change-of-use approval from the state. Franjola said HHGC received grant funding from Ohio to help cover architectural fees and permits.

“It was a gathering space, and now we’re changing it into a factory,” Franjola said.

Through creating local jobs and maintaining sustainable practices, Franjola wants to enter the space as a flexible factory that can fulfill a variety of orders. 

“If we’re going to make ‘Made in the USA’ sustainable and viable, we have to train people how to do it,” Franjola said. 

Community staffing

Hocking Hills Garment Center has a grant partnership with the Survivor Advocacy Outreach Program, which supports survivors of sexual violence, domestic violence, human trafficking and stalking by helping them find safe housing, childcare and workforce development resources.

HHGC was awarded a $50,000 JobsOhio Inclusion Grant for critical machinery and equipment, which was supported through SAOP’s Appalachian Community Grant Program award for workforce training, according to an HHGC press release.

Franjola said the cost of training ranges from $4,500-$5,000 per person. However, the grant provides funding for the training of up to eight people from SAOP until the end of 2026.

“We’re training people how to sew,” Franjola said. “But it is a certain personality that we need because it’s a team environment.”

She also said the center recently completed its first onboarding process. 

“We are setting up the culture within so that we really are creating a place of respect and open communication, open dialogue, making sure everybody is very comfortable and socially ethical,” Franjola said. 

Trainees are paid $15 an hour, above Ohio’s minimum wage of $10.70. Once an employee receives his or her U.S. Department of Labor certification, the pay increases to $18 an hour and can increase more based on skill set and improvement. 

Franjola said an important part of ethical business practices is not just pay but also working conditions. All HHGC employees work standing up with a full range of motion on an anti-fatigue mat and can interact with their teammates. 

“It’s a very different social environment and physical environment,” Franjola said. “You’re in a job that requires you to think, to give feedback, to work as a team, to have movement. A huge part of the ethics of a job is making sure that the worker is happy with what they're doing and comfortable.”

Franjola highlighted that HHGC is an LLC benefit corporation with the state of Ohio, allowing the center to give a portion of its profits or revenue back to a cause, though the center is still in the process of establishing one.

“We are so community-driven that we wanted to make sure that we had that give back as part of what we’re building,” Franjola said.

Stephanie Katterhenrich, a high school classmate of Franjola, started working at HHGC in October.

“Every day, you have a chance to do something different, and you can change whenever you want to reinvent yourself, so to speak,” Katterhenrich said.

Katterhenrich said reducing her carbon footprint is part of her daily goal and something she can achieve working at HHGC.

“I love what we’re doing here because it’s going along with the mission that I have in life in terms of just ‘do better, be better,’” Katterhenrich said.

Sustainability efforts 

Franjola operates the Hocking Hills Garment Center on a lean manufacturing system, a process aimed at creating less waste through production and increased efficiency. 

“Lean manufacturing was something that I felt was really important to have long-term sustainability in the industry,” Franjola said. 

Each staff member works in a cell of machines, with every individual machine completing a step in the process of creating a larger piece. By utilizing a system of cells, not only is the process more flexible, but also versatile, something Franjola said she loves about the structure.

Using trays that are passed by staff members to the next cell as a step is completed is another way Franjola practices sustainability. Organizing pieces by color, size and label aids the team in reducing human error and waste.

“How do you keep things really efficient and versatile, but also as a worker, you’re really engaged, you’re part of a team,” Franjola said. “You’re able to move around and do different things. That is exciting to me.”

Cotton tracing is another sustainable practice Franjola plans to promote at HHGC. The practice works to minimize the environmental footprint of U.S. cotton by tracking it in the Cotton Belt from gin to mill, making it more transparent and efficient.

Franjola said that, traditionally, companies do not geographically trace where cotton came from, but recent technology is working to change that.

“They’re doing it in different ways, using either documentation or physical tracers that they put into the fiber,” she said. “But what I’m learning is that it is a little bit complicated when you’re getting domestically made materials.” 

Another sustainable practice HHGC is utilizing is prepared-for-dye fabric, which allows Franjola to purchase fabrics and threads before being dyed a certain color. 

Instead of having to order rolls of dyed fabric and thread, cutting each color individually and having leftover fabric and thread in a variety of colors, she can order it before dying and only dye what is needed for each order, Franjola said.

“It’s much more contained and manageable from a raw material standpoint,” she said. “It kind of goes back to less waste, and then it's a lot more flexible for the customer.” 

Business owners have already flocked to put in orders with Franjola’s center, including Mary Ann Kokenge, chief vision officer of Fancy Folk Overalls and Such. Kokenge, originally from the Cincinnati area, is a family nurse practitioner by trade but started making overalls after they became a staple in her wardrobe.

After working with other partners to produce her product, Kokenge said she could never find the right fit and didn’t want to go to New York, LA or overseas. Through word of mouth, Kokenge said she came upon Franjola’s business and decided to leap.

“It’s been a good match because Betsy has been very patient with, ‘Oh, that pattern piece is incorrect’ and stuff,” Kokenge said. “It’s been very delightful, and I’ve learned a lot of the process you go through.” 

Kokenge said she tries to cut down on waste in her business by developing smaller, functional products with scraps such as utensil holders. From the brand side of things, Kokenge tries to communicate sustainability with customers as well.

“(When) making clothes, it’s a sustainability question for me,” she said. “You can go in and buy such cheap clothes these days, but there are consequences to it.”

The U.S. Government Accountability Office published a report in December 2024, citing an almost 50% increase in textile waste from 2000-2018. 

“Textile waste has increased because of multiple factors, including a shift to a fast fashion business model; limited, decentralized systems for collecting and sorting textiles; and the infancy of textile recycling technologies,” the report said. 

Harmful changes to the environment also have been noted, according to the GAO. The report said the effects include the release of greenhouse gases and the leaching of contaminants into soil and water as textile waste decomposes in landfills.

“This is sort of my answer from all these years of seeing bad decisions being made that do put profits over people and economics over the environment,” Franjola said. “I think there’s a way to do both, so that’s really what we’re trying to do here. What we’re doing is not for everybody, but I do think that we’re producing a better product in a better way.”

Economics of the future 

President Donald Trump is implementing a 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tariff on imports from China in his new administration. For manufacturers, this could disrupt operating costs, making it more difficult to source materials. 

Franjola said at the moment, with investments in U.S. textiles not where she wants them to be, it makes it harder to get material in a cost-affordable way in the quantities she needs. 

“What we’re doing in real-time is finding our local ecosystem,” Franjola said.

Although tariffs are designed to protect domestic industries and home-grown manufacturers, the Associated Press said they may also serve to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices.

“I really hope what happens is that if there are tariffs in place, maybe they’re very specific, so they’re very thoughtful of, ‘what are those raw materials that we don’t currently manufacture now?’” Franjola said.

She hopes some of these tariffs will be used to fund and subsidize sectors of the industry that need to rebuild or need to put money toward new technology, doing things in a better way than they have in the past.

“If we’re smart about tariffs, we can then focus on the labor here, but it does unfortunately mean higher costs because our labor costs (money),” Franjola said.

What’s next?

Franjola said while most of their current orders come from brands that handle their fabric sourcing, HHGC is launching an in-house line where the business will oversee both sourcing and manufacturing. 

The initiative will focus on a blanks program, including T-shirts and sweatshirts, aimed to foster a local economic ecosystem, Franjola said. 

Franjola said although the center does not produce cotton or fabric in Ohio, HHGC is partnering with U.S. manufacturers for materials and collaborating with a dye house in Hilliard, Ohio, and an Athens-based screen printer. 

She said the first project is expected to be ready by late March or early April, and HHGC will seek partnerships with local businesses and organizations interested in supporting a truly local chain.

“We can create these jobs that are great jobs, fun jobs, that are here and really meaningful, not only for people who live here but also that are benefiting the industry and the planet,” Franjola said.

@emthegemmy 

es542222@ohio.edu 

@maggie.amacher 

ma657122@ohio.edu