St. Pete mom, entrepreneur honors women with Mother's Day Market

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Lot 4 at Tropicana Field transformed into a celebration for mothers on Sunday.

The monthly 'Saturday Shoppes' pop-up market in St. Petersburg stuck around one more day to offer music, shopping, local homemade foods, and even flowers hand-delivered from St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch. 

"I want them to be relaxed, be comfortable and just take a moment out for themselves," said 'The Saturday Shoppes' founder, Renee Edwards.

It was all made possible by Edwards, also a mom herself, who spent the last few years turning her dreams of being an entrepreneur into reality while raising three children on her own.

"I started a small business back in 2015 called skin candy. It was an all-natural skincare line," Edwards explained. "My biggest debut was in December of '17 when I became the first black product to be sold in the St. Pete visitor's store."

The roadblocks, however, came when trying to sell her products at local markets.

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"I got so many rejections. So much red tape to go through to actually get the product out," Edwards added. 

St. Pete's residents taking in Saturday Shoppes' pop-up market

So, she decided to create her own that would focus on vendors from minority and women-owned businesses in the Bay Area.

"So many of them don't get the platform, so many of them don't get the exposure that they actually need," Edwards explained.

What started as her first market in the gym of a St. Pete church has grown into monthly weekend pop-up markets at Tropicana Field, thanks to a partnership with the Tampa Bay Rays and in cities across the Bay Area and up the east coast.

As her network of vendors grew, they started coming to Renee for advice.

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That blossomed into weekly courses that she now teaches with the help of other local business owners, called the Saturday Shoppes Vendor Academy.

"You learn how to do pricing, marketing, social media, and just how to brand your product and actually grow," Renee's cousin, Tiffany Henry, explained.  

But if you ask Renee, her greatest accomplishment as an entrepreneur is inspiring her children to go after their dreams.

"My kids were involved at events and making products, and now my daughter is an entrepreneur as well," she said proudly.