Last semester, crocheted goods, jewelry, food and more filled Eastern Illinois University’s Library Quad for the fall Small Business Fest. Now come spring, the vendors have returned.  

Small Business Fest is a craft and vendor show held once a semester on Eastern’s campus for students at Eastern or in the community to both promote their businesses and sell their goods.  

This semester’s show had 52 total vendors present, according to Elian Encarnacion, a junior business analytics major who was managing a vendor sign-in sheet for the event.  

One of these vendors was Liz Ziemer Crochet, a crochet business operated by freshman biological science pre-med and French major Elizabeth Ziemer.  

“I love it,” Ziemer said. “It’s been super, super nice.”  

Ziemer said she started crocheting at 9 years old before dropping it for a time and later picking it up again around 13.   

Now over 10 years later, she has made a business for herself and has become a first-time vendor at this semester’s Small Business Fest.  

Helping Ziemer out both as a friend and a customer was freshman neuroscience pre-med and French major Madeline Adams who bought a crochet dragon from Ziemer.  

Adams described the event as super fun and highly recommended it to others.  

Another vendor who drew a larger crowd was Worthey Peppers, a family-owned and operated hot sauce business that also sells seasonings, syrup, honey and spicy jams.  

Tyler Worthey, a freshman exercise science and philosophy major, started the business as a supervised agricultural experience during his freshman year of high school, which has since flourished into a business showcased at multiple events such as the Small Business Fest and Charleston Farmer’s Market on the Charleston Square.  

“I’ve had entrepreneur blood in me since I was a kid,” Worthey said.  

While Tyler Worthey is busy at school, his mom Angie Worthey helps out with the business alongside the occasional input from his dad and sister.  

What prompted Worthey to start his business was his deep interest in peppers that started in high school. This led him down the path of watching shows like “Hot Ones” and later realized that Sean Evans, host of “Hot Ones,” was originally from the Chicago area.  

“That was just like, ‘Oh, he’s from Illinois. I could do this too,’” Worthey said. “I don’t know why, but that gave me a lot of inspiration knowing he was kind of an Illinois native as well.”  

Worthey’s business has won him two state awards within the Future Farmers of America realm of SAEs: one on the agriculture processing side and the other on the agriculture sales side.  

Worthey said he has been disqualified from national awards because his business was considered too culinary for agriculture even though he attended a food products and processing systems conference paid and hosted by FFA.  

Despite this, Worthey continues to hold a positive outlook on the situation.  

“I’m very grateful that I ended up winning two state awards with it,” he said. “I’m very thankful that this has evolved from almost a solo project into a family business that hopefully will encapsulate everyone in the coming years.”   

Each vendor is required to pay a vendor fee of $10 for entrepreneurship club members, $20 for Eastern students and $60 for local small businesses.  

The revenue generated by this fee is then put back into marketing via flyers or Facebook posts for the next Small Business Fest, according to sophomore business management major and president of entrepreneurship club Emily Larsen.  

Going into the event, Larsen said she focused the marketing for this semester’s event more toward the community compared to Eastern.  

“We need people who could actually afford the products and pay, and sometimes college students don’t have the money,” Larsen said.  

Contrary to last semester, this semester’s Small Business Fest featured a food truck for the first time which is something Larsen hopes to expand on in the future.  

Larsen said she thinks it’s important for Eastern to hold an event like this because she feels that a lot of student businesses are hidden.  

“I feel like EIU holding this type of event really shows the amount of entrepreneurs that are on campus and showing the future of entrepreneurship,” she said.  

The next Small Business Fest is set to be held in the fall semester of the 2025-2026 academic year.  

Luke Brewer can be reached at 581-2812 or at lsbrewer@eiu.edu.