Of all the businesses you might expect to see in tiny Eureka, Kansas — population 2,332 — a master shoemaker from Italy making custom boots is likely not one of them. Yet, this is where you’ll find Sam Vasta — “rhymes with pasta,” he says — quietly pursuing his craft in a small workshop behind his home.

His journey here has included stops in four countries plus a stint in a refugee camp after an earthquake in 2009 destroyed his home and business in Italy. Before coming to Kansas, he was in Vermont, which he found too expensive and too far from the work he wanted to pursue.