Finding the Right Ingredients

It’s not hyperbole to say that nearly every square inch of Kim Hancock’s stores are purposefully curated and filled with aromatic scents, colors, textures and products that make it easy to smile and hard to leave without more in your basket than originally intended.

As Rafa Natural celebrates 16 years of providing natural—and many locally handcrafted—products in the categories of skin care, wellness, bath, body, home, gifts and timeless goods, the real story of success is about much more than an incredible variety of SKUs and ever-changing seasonal offerings.

Kim Hancock, owner of Rafa Natural and a cornerstone of Downtown Bartow’s resurgence, did not follow a meticulously designed blueprint to small business success. Instead she pursued her passion, defied convention and found purpose through both immense joy and unimaginable sorrow.

It is a story rooted in the most fundamental human desire: to care—first for her family, then for her community.

Her path into retail didn’t begin with organic bath bombs, but with discarded furniture. Before the Bartow and Lakeland storefronts and the multi-state expansion of Rafa Natural, there was simpleVintage, Kim’s small business where she refurbished and rehabbed vintage furniture. It started as a way to keep her mind busy while caretaking for her husband’s grandmother.

Throughout this early venture, her husband, Curtis, was a fervent advocate and proponent. He wholeheartedly supported her creative endeavor and loved the hunt of tracking down distinctive pieces. He was responsible for bringing home the very first piece she ever painted—which she adorned with the iconic Union Jack design—after a friend of his found a trailer full of antique furniture on a piece of property he had purchased.

Kim officially started simpleVintage in a little 300 square foot parcel of a warehouse in Highland City, but one successful rehab and sale, and one ascending move at a time, she started to prove she knew what people wanted and that she could do that working for herself.

This pragmatic yet creative mindset was forged after years in large institutions—nine years working with student leaders at Southeastern University and five years in human resources at Publix. She loved the incredible people she worked for—including mentors like Alison Rutland and Charlie Dawes at SEU—but eventually thought: “I’ve worked under two incredible leaders without being micromanaged, what are the odds of me getting a third? I’m not old, but I’m way too old to have anybody telling me what to do.”

A Pivot with a Purpose
While she fell in love with Chalk Paint® and re-purposing furniture, it was actually natural bath, body and home products that caught her attention in an even more meaningful way. Kim and Curtis’ daughter and son both suffered from asthma. Kim Williams, the founder of Rafa Natural, suggested the cause could be traced to the family’s use of conventional cleaning products and plug-in air fresheners.

“The results after switching to Rafa Natural’s products and making the other changes Kim suggested were undeniable,” Kim recalls. “They went from having asthma attacks all the time to almost nothing. It was life changing.”

She became a frequent customer of Rafa and developed a friendship with Williams, and eventually her fandom turned into an acquisition in 2017.

“The running joke is, I loved everything so much I just bought it all,” she says with a grin.

At the time Kim purchased the business, Curtis, who had worked for Publix for many years, was due for a major promotion that would require the family to move, and was going to limit his ability to help source and move furniture the way he had been for simpleVintage.

“Family was the deciding factor. We didn’t want our family to be separated,” Kim shares. “We decided Curtis will just retire and we’ll grow this, so that’s what we did.”

Rows of bottles, buckets and drums now line shelves behind the scenes in the production space, known as the apothecary, in Downtown Bartow, where her team carefully crafts the products that eventually get rung up at registers as close as next door and as far away as Alaska, where a home decor store carries some of their products.

An Advocate for Bartow and Joyful Connections
When Kim and Curtis purchased the business, they opened their flagship storefront in the Historic Stuart Building, a 112-year old property that housed the Stewart Hotel for decades in an era where folks often came to town via the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.

Kim and Curtis started as a tenant in the Stuart Building, then pursued the corner space next door, and finally approached the building’s owner with what Kim says was an audacious request: “‘Hey, if there’s ever a possibility for us to buy the building, please let us know.’ And he did.”

They purchased the Stuart Building in January 2021, and as landlords they have helped transform this corner of downtown.

She persisted, fueled by a passion to curate a destination. Inspired by the handful of businesses already there, she started convincing other businesses, like Unfiltered Coffeehouse and her friend Becky Borders of Bartow Mercantile, to join her.

Today, she is as proud of the businesses she shares the building with as she is of her own businesses. There are nearly 20 small businesses, including: a barber, wine bar, clothing boutique, licensed estheticians, attorneys, photographers, financial advisor, title company, insurance agent, an engineering firm and a working artist.

This journey has been marked by the joy of building relationships and collaborations, nurturing a network of creative and entrepreneurial friends, including people likes Nikki Whitlock, owner of Scout & Tag, Junely owner Kelly Riley and mural artist Gillian Fazio, who Hancock commissioned to do a one-of-a-kind painting for the lobby of the Stuart Building, and a full wall at White Oak BBQ Supply & Mercantile.

Her business philosophy is simple, and it speaks volumes about the community she strives to build, both within her store and her town: “I don’t care what kind of products you sell, nobody is going to return if you’re not nice to them and don’t provide good customer service.”

As the continual expansion of the business proves, customers also seem to think the products are quite nice. Offerings found at Rafa Natural are made fresh in Florida, but Kim learned early on that vertically integrating everything wasn’t necessary. She realized that by curating and carrying other brands that share the same values, she could “send people to my storefront who I may not have reached.” This belief in collaboration over competition has been a hallmark of her success.

Kim’s willingness to create her own rules also extends to her staffing. She works alongside her daughter, Courtney, as well as her daughter-in-law, Madison. Her son, Logan, runs White Oak BBQ Supply & Mercantile in the Historic K-T Pharmacy building she owns in Downtown Bartow.

“I think the idea that you can provide an opportunity for your family and your friends to do something that they love and you love, and give you flexibility, is worth every other sacrifice,” she says. “We keep breaking rules and it keeps working.”

Pieces of Peace
It’s clear when you walk into any Rafa Natural location that Kim and Curtis have succeeded in what they call “leaving their mark by making something better and giving people opportunities.” Not just in Bartow, but even out of state, including in Thomasville, Ga.

Curtis enjoyed visiting family in the quaint, historic Southwest Georgia town as a kid, and during COVID the Hancock family fell in love with the spot as a sort of second home.

“I think the idea that you can provide an opportunity for your family and your friends to do something that they love and you love, and give you flexibility, is worth every other sacrifice,” she says. “We keep breaking rules and it keeps working.”

During one visit to Thomasville, the couple unexpectedly found a building for sale in the iconic area referred to as “The Bricks,” a historic brick-paved section of Broad Street located in the heart of Downtown Thomasville—a true rarity according to locals—and they decided to purchase it to build out a full-scale retail store, curating it meticulously, and at times painstakingly. They did it though, opening on November 6, 2023—a day that is unforgettable to Kim for several reasons.

“This is the last space that I curated with my husband,” she says, “and November 6 is [the day] I received my last coherent message from my husband. It’s like he made it until we got that store opened.”

*Kim Hancock, and her late husband, Curtis, have helped spearhead growth in Downtown Bartow as business owners and landlords.*

From that point on, there were a number of factors that significantly impacted Curtis’ physical and mental health, and his journey was marked by misdiagnoses, medical mistakes, delays in care, significant deficiencies left untreated by doctors and more self-advocacy than Kim ever imagined she would have to do on behalf of her husband.

Curtis passed away on April 6, 2024, at the age of 49, when he took his own life.

In the latter stages of Curtis’s journey, a test revealed he had two gene breaks, which can disrupt proteins essential for development and cause cancers, diseases and neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Kim acknowledges Curtis might still be alive today if he had received the level of care needed sooner, and she encourages people to ask more questions and bring together more professionals if it seems like there are “pieces of the puzzle” missing.

“It was a constant fight and I try to talk to people about the need to advocate for yourself and your loved ones,” Kim reflects. “I have a good friend, who started out as a customer in Lakeland…and we saw each other at Front Page Brewing, and she said, ‘I have to tell you, my husband is alive because you told your story and we advocated for what he needed.’”

Kim continues to be extraordinarily transparent about her devastating loss, sharing reflective posts with her community via social media under the handle @hancockfamilyupdates. One post from December 2025, reflecting on a moment frozen in time from their 14th wedding anniversary, captures the profound depth of their bond: “When I say Curtis was the kindest, most generous, faithful, and consistent man, it still feels like an understatement…I can still hear him say ‘I haven’t just loved you, I’ve always been in love with you.’ If he loved you, you knew.”

Part of her decision to be so open is to challenge the societal taboos and judgments surrounding mental health and suicide.

“I want people to know I’m not embarrassed by it… I think we have a lot of cultural beliefs and judgments on people…and I’m not saying I never had those in the past, I am grateful to have had a shift in perspective more than 20 years ago when a mentor talked to me about God’s grace, and life, and suicide” Kim says.

She said in the face of a crisis of that magnitude some people distance themselves, some leave completely and others unexpectedly draw closer than ever before.

She said people like Whitlock, and Nikki’s husband, David, picked her up at the worst time in her life and have supported her through the journey of loss and grief.

For Kim, her original mission to create a space where “everybody that comes in my path feels welcome… and is treated with kindness,” has only grown stronger. From the Bartow location where their products are still “Made Fresh in Florida,” to the curated brands they feature, Rafa Natural is more than a store. It is an extension of Kim’s loving care for humanity—a living testament to the power of community, family and the enduring strength required to heal and champion change.

Finding the Right Ingredients

Always in Bloom