Kelly Valentine - Scout Dry Goods
MARCH 19, 2020 © Right Here, Right Now.
“I’m grateful for a lot. I’m grateful that we’ve built up an audience over the past 12 years that now when we’re like “Hey Guys, Shop a different way with us, a completely different way” they’re really receptive and they’re responding well to it, so we’re having some sales despite being closed but it’s nothing compared to if our doors were actually open.
We’ve been around for about 12 years as a clothing store. It started in 2008 right when Barack Obama had just been elected so there was a lot of excitement around that, but we were also in a recession so building up to actually opening our doors in 2008, we were going in very scared because it was a recession so we didn’t really know how to handle that. So this is very similar in that everybody in the community is kind of hurting at the same time, but this time is a little different because there have been a lot of relationships that have been built, there’s a lot of community support. I can use my platform to promote Amsterdam Falafel yesterday, for example, had a buy one get one half off everything because they’re going to be closed for who knows how long. And the day before that it was Paddy Mcgowan's cause it was St. Patricks Day, and we’ve done some grassroots type of things where a lot of artists and business owners are tagging each other and reposting our stuff. We work with a lot of local artists so I’ve been trying to promote their stuff and get their contact information out there so people can buy directly from them if they want to. We work with different independent artists throughout the United States, and just getting a lot of messages and texts saying…” is there any way we can support you and let me share some of your stuff on social media”? and it’s just like…in a time before this, it felt really divided. Obviously because of political stuff, but even some within the same political mindset it felt like there was some division, and now it really feels like there are a lot of people coming together for the greater good.
If we do the social distancing and keep our businesses closed we’re gonna be able to save the most vulnerable in our community…like my dad. He’s not leaving the house…he’s kind of hunkering down. There’s just so many people. There’s a customer that was very sick and she was just in really bad shape prior to this, and it’s like wow…you know maybe us, we’re relatively healthy, young, and whatever…moving around and stuff but it could really knock out a lot of really sick individuals. So, hopefully, if we all stick together and just take this seriously we’ll be able to get through it faster.
In general, I’d say…well, I have three kids so I hope school opens…haha…cause I don’t want summer break to start already. I have a 15-year-old who’s at home right now I’m paying her to watch the boys so I can try to work. School opening would be really nice, I mean just getting back together…getting back to normal. I read something really good this morning, it was something like, "Now that I’m not able to shake someone's hand I’m not going to take it for granted, or waiting in a line, or going to a crowded place…it’s like I’m gonna have a little bit of a shift now when I experience those things, where it use to be an annoyance to wait in a line or to have like a “fill a bag” where there's just one - in - one out…like that’s not happening anymore. The dollar sales that we do every Sunday, those are really popular and it’s like we’re not doing that…I hope it doesn’t last to long, and I hope that we can get through it.
I really think that people are really resilient and it’s been cool to see how different businesses have adapted to this and the creativity that has come out of it. It's like okay, this is hard, nobody's making money…we can’t all make Go Fund Me’s you know? So how are we going to shift our business, stay focused, stay positive? That's a big thing for my staff. There’s a lot of people that are just really scared, I mean it’s an hourly job. I don’t have the funds to just say okay everybody, take two weeks off and I’ll pay you for all the hours that you would have worked. I’m just not set up to do that, I’m not a big corporation…it’s just me. So that’s hard, that’s been really hard, so since we’re officially closed I’ve recommended that they seek unemployment benefits at the time being because I don’t really have anything else to tell them. Nobody was expecting this to be like this.
It’s been kind of interesting. In the retail and fashion community here there’s a lot of businesses and a lot of new businesses so there’s a lot of competition and it’s kind of like...how do we all work together with each other? Somebody’s post the other day that was like “I need financial support, just Venmo me five bucks, anything” it’s like, wow, if I have a beef with you, I don’t want to have beef with anybody, I don’t want to have hateful vibes or anything so I’ve been trying to tip higher when I can, send people that are really struggling five bucks here and there…it’s not like I’ve got a lot of cash to spare myself, I don’t have health insurance, I don’t have an income…it’s not anything like it was. Just good Karma, Pay it forward where we can and just hope we all make it out the other side. I think we will be stronger, I’m interested to see…I just hope it doesn’t go on for months or months because that’s really scary.”
