<div>Hi! I’m the owner and creative director of Proud Mary, Jessica Hinkle. 
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<div>I'm self-taught in all aspects of running a business, designing clothing, marketing, and creating content.
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<div>I’m passionate about Proud Mary because I truly feel fat people deserve to express their personal style without abiding by the arbitrary rules that are imposed on us for inhabiting bigger bodies. 
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<div>These rules intend to make us smaller, more palatable to a society that treats us like an afterthought <em>at best.</em>
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<div>Proud Mary was established in 2011 with a mission of offering fun vintage clothing and a sense of belonging and worthiness to everyone.
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<div>Armed with pizza, beer, and my friend’s barely working DSLR, we completed our first photoshoot. For the first couple years, I sold vintage and re-worked pieces on etsy and at pop ups and markets.
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<div>In 2013, we pivoted to focus on plus size vintage and exclusive designs. That year we organized our first plus size clothing swap. It was a huge success!
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<div>Then in 2015, we premiered our very first original pieces with a look book.
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<div>I was immediately and absolutely in love with the process of creating and curating clothing for fat folks and showing the designs off with creative editorials using visibly plus models.
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<div>We started producing more plus size centered events like clothing swaps,  pop ups, plus size burlesque shows, comedy, poetry readings, fashion shows, panels, and more. 
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<div>In 2018, we opened our flagship store in Los Angeles, CA. Now, we're gearing up to celebrate our 5th year as a brick and mortar.
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<div>At the core, our mission is to offer a place to find unique clothing that actually fits you in a space that doesn’t feel like an afterthought and to produce events for fat community where you feel welcome to come as you are.
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<div>Because I don't want fat people to have to settle.
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<div>As a small business with no funding, we have experienced the challenges of lack of resources as well as the unpredictable nature of retail over the years.
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<div>But we've always made it work. I've always kept other employment so I could put every dollar back into Proud Mary while still running it full time.
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<div>I’m proud that we've made it this far. And especially that we have been able to make it through the first 3 years of a pandemic that none of us knew how to navigate.
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<div>But the last few years have brought on additional challenges for us.
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<div>You may have noticed small businesses running more sales, doing more markets, promoting more, and running their own crowdfunding campaigns.
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<div>As many small businesses are struggling, it’s a uniquely challenging time to keep doors open. 
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<div>But we don’t want to give up. And currently, things aren’t sustainable for us.
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<div>In order to position ourselves to keep the doors open long term, we need to get out of the red, expand our hours and staff, make some changes to the outside of the building to bring in more customers, add store fixtures that can house more inventory, and have a reserve to help us through a slow season and a production loss we suffered earlier this year.
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<div>Our 5 year shop-aversary is this month and our landlord has FINALLY given us clearance to paint the outside of the building.
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<div>We often hear that people don't know our store is there because it blends in. 
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<div>This would be important for customers to more easily discover us.  But this opportunity comes at an especially lean time.
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<div>We also have heard your feedback that our limited hours make it harder for some to visit us. 
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<div>We are currently at capacity for hours as a lot of running the business takes me out of the store and I have other employment so we need to expand our staff.
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<div>It takes hiring, training, and having funds for payroll.
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<div>I thought long and hard about asking the community for help. This isn’t an easy ask but I know that for the future of Proud Mary, the events we want to create, and the clothing we want to offer that we need help pushing through these tough times!
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<div>In transparency, here is where donations will be allocated:
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<div><strong>Beautification of the store to attract new customers:</strong>
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<div>-Painting the outside of the storefront
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<div>-A new branded awning (our landlord will not allow us to remove it - only replace it)
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<div>-A new outdoor sign as ours has been dulled and the light no longer works
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<div>-Replace the the glass window and film that has been severely scratched
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<div><strong>Store fixtures to allow us to better display current inventory and bring more into the store:</strong>
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<div>-New racks and shelving
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<div>-Replace overhead lights with track lighting 
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<div>-Repairs to the wall, ceiling, and trim
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<div><strong>Payroll:</strong>
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<div>-Payroll to help us train new staff and expand our hours  
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<div><strong>Advertisement:</strong>
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<div>-Marketing costs to help us increase sales and traffic
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<div><strong>Production costs:</strong>
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<div>-Samples - We had to switch production team and will need to invest costs into samples from the new team (this has been a big struggle for us this year in releasing new pieces)
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<div><strong>Debts:</strong>
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<div>-If anything remains, we would allocate it to get us caught up with vendors and debt we obtained through the pandemic to keep the space open
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<div>If you aren’t able to donate, shares and engagement also help! 
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<div>We also offer gift cards if you’d like to support by shopping later or gifting for someone.
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