His mom, Judy Renouf, felt opening a craft style shop would give her 21-year-old son, who has autism, the opportunity to increase his social skills.
It’s doing that and a lot more as he greets customer after customer coming in the door at the business located at 43 Main Street in Stephenville, directly across from Domino Pizza House.
After successfully completing a two-year Film and Video Production program at College of the North Atlantic, Jesse quickly learned that in a town the size of Stephenville there likely wouldn’t be a job available or enough business to start his own job in film and video.
That’s when mom and dad (Wayne Renouf) stepped in and got the new business on the go, which also employs a second worker – Kelly Noseworthy.
“What I like most about it is offering authentic artwork to customers,” Jesse said of what’s sold at the business.
The stocked shelves include giftware, woodwork items, pebble art and personalized gifts, which they take orders for.
While he always liked painting, it was while he was taking a class in “Introduction to Colour Theory” taught by Sharon Puddester as part of the second year of his Film and Video Production program that his interest in artwork piqued.
While being interviewed at his store, Jesse was working away at a painting of an orange shed with a brown paling fence next to it and, by the time the interview was over, he had it nearly completed.
“I like doing orange because people like that colour, it sells well,” he said.
The business is a real family affair as his mom and dad help out by getting boards ready for him and smoothing rocks that Jesse and Kelly have collected. While Jesse’s work involves a lot of painting, he also has local photos that he’s taken that are for sale.
His brother Julien, and Jessica Noseworthy, Julien’s girlfriend, played a big role in the company’s logo design.
Jesse said there’s been lots of interest in his Facebook page Treasures by Jesse with more than 5,000 hits and he is hoping that translates into people coming into the shop and purchasing items, which include some of the prettiest ugly sticks ever seen.
“Customers especially like my artwork and Kelly’s pebble artwork,” he said.
In addition to punching lots of hours at the business, Jesse still takes piano lessons from teacher Sandy Abbott. He was the 2016 Rose Bowl winner at the Stephenville Rotary Music Festival.
Noseworthy said there have been some tourists dropping by in recent days and they’re hoping that once construction is completed next to the store on Grove Street that it will pick up even more.
The plan is to keep the business open year round and offer different seasonal themes.
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