Contestant's Case to Win

Village Works Enterprises LLC creates and sells greeting card jigsaw puzzles and children's jigsaw puzzles that feature colorful, original artwork. We added traditional greeting cards to our product offerings in December 2008. Our puzzles and greeting cards can be customized to fit the needs of individuals, nonprofits, schools, businesses – anyone who has a desire to stand out from the crowd in a fun and unique way!

How did we come up with the concept of greeting card jigsaw puzzles? Back in 1999, Ramona Bristow Berry and Monica Dennis were volunteers for the annual summer youth literacy program held at their church. This program also emphasized the richness of the African-American culture and needed tools to help teach this richness. Monica and Ramona went in search of jigsaw puzzles to buy for the program and fell short at every turn. Seeing a need for puzzles that accurately depicted the African-American and Hispanic cultures, the duo simultaneously decided they should be the ones to fill that need. The concept of Village Works Enterprises was born.

Village Works is founded on the third principle of the Nguzo Saba – Ujima, which means Collective Work & Responsibility. Color, culture, creativity and community are the essence of who we are and what we do. We are dedicated to promoting the creative, collective works of all cultures for the purpose of providing quality, authentic, multicultural puzzles and educational products. Our artists range in background and hail from across the country. We look to home first in finding the help we need to grow the business - family, friends, church members - and we have gone far on the help and goodwill of those who know us and love us.

We have received mountains of support simply because others believe in us and we seek to funnel that support back into the community via tithing to our church, supporting good causes and taking a chance with the untapped talent we find along the way.

Ramona and Monica were childless when they had this idea and later found themselves not only partners in business but sisters in motherhood. They had their first children within 6 months of each other. Ramona is the mother of daughter Kirya, 9, and Monica is mom to Isaiah, who will be 9 in March, and Amayah, 5. The partners still hold full-time jobs, which they also love, while running their business and their families.