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Start & Grow Your Nonprofit Podcast · Tim Needham

Episode 52 - Living Out Your Calling Through Creativity with Jaime Zayas

November 4, 2025·45 min·4 clips
Jaime left mechanical engineering after a powerful dream where God called him to share the gospel through circus and theater.
Tim welcomes Jaime with real warmth and sets up Kinetic Tapestry as a St. Louis faith based ministry he has wanted to interview for a while. Jaime keeps it grounded. Kinetic Tapestry is a circus and theater company trying to push back on parts of entertainment culture. Then the practical stuff shows up. Registrations grew. Helpers became employees. Staffing was tricky because circus teaching is not something a random willing person can fake. If someone teaches juggling, they need the skill to back it up. In 2020, with shutdown pressure around them, Jaime says they stayed open and started growing. More people came in, and the team began looking at its own students for help with younger or more advanced learners. That part feels very hands-on. They named what they saw in students, asked if they wanted to teach, and trained the ones who said yes. Some stayed for years. Some tried it and drifted toward other thoughts, without Jaime treating that as a disaster. The whole thing happened in a 900 to 1000 square foot space, which meant waitlists were part of the deal. The episode makes growth feel less like a slick plan and more like steady attention to the people already in the room.

As heard by us

A circus and theater company with a clear focus on culture, teaching, and growth.

Jaime Saez’s Kinetic Tapestry reads like a circus and theater company with a clear purpose: change the culture of entertainment, while working in the United States and abroad and running a circus school in St. Louis. The strongest part is the way it grows its own people.

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Why you'd press play

If you're building a faith-based creative organization, Jaime shows how a small circus-and-theater ministry can keep growing.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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