Back to the BYU Cougars Newsfeed

After lives in reclusive polygamous communities, some Utah women are trying to build new lives — with the help of multilevel marketing

Colorado City, Ariz. • Dawn Bistline-Cooke and her husband couldn’t pay their power bill. They struggled to afford diapers. Their truck had been repossessed. And at priesthood meetings, leaders of the FLDS Church reminded her husband to contribute up to $1,000 a month toward the storehouse and legal costs of the polygamous sect.

During the week, her husband worked construction jobs out of town while Bistline-Cooke cared for their four children. In search of fun one weekend, she went to a “What Women Want” expo in St. George and found a business opportunity instead: selling appetite-suppressant lollipops called Power Pops.