Help us stay afloat!!!!!

Hello Community, Friends, and Family; Monica here and again I come to you with tears in my eyes and hope in my heart. Last week I announced that we are actively looking for a partner, investor, or buyer.

I was overwhelmed by the incredible love and support and hope that came from my message of vulnerability and it is because of the kindness I received I even feel ok putting this out to the world.

We need help now. I am drowning, I see the lifeboats in the distance but I have been treading water for a long time and I need a raft to save me at this moment. The pressure, guilt, shame and stress that my debit to many of our vendors has left me in a state of debilitating anxiety with no other options but to ask my community for help.

Many of our vendors are small and being late on payment to them is a huge if not crippling inconvenience to their business and livelihood. This is mortifying, but it’s where I find myself at this moment - my credit cards are maxed out and all on payment plans, and my terms with almost all vendors have gone to COD status meaning almost any product we bring in must be paid for in advance - in addition to being crippled by needing to pay for products in advance or in a very short window of time I have thousands of dollars in weekly payment plans to many vendors that must be satisfied or paid in full before we can work with them again. These are very difficult structures to operate in when you can not even bring in the product to sell to make the money to continue satisfying these debts. If we were properly stocked none of this would be difficult, you come to our shop or see our website empty and I embarrassingly tiptoe around the fact that we are out of MANY of the items you want….. It kills me and humiliates me daily.

I have borrowed money from dear friends, worked until completely burnt out, slept on the floor of my shops, gone without food, missed time with my family, taken out cash advances - these are horrible “loans’ that are predatory and crushing - interest rates on my 3 cash advances have been between 60- 84% and all quick pay back - if you are late with your payment as I was last week you are penalized with more debt- last week it was $249- per day.

Sadly last week and the prior week all my bank accounts were negative - I was charged over $1.5k in overdraft fees in one week alone for only one account, and all of my bank accounts had fees near the thousands.

I cringe to put this out there, my credit in the last 10 months has dropped almost 200 points, my home is in foreclosure status and we have been selling as many of our personal possessions as we can to pay for our food and to put gas in our car to get to work.

I am now in my third week of negative bank accounts and being charged more than the store makes in a day, I have no idea how we will hang on under these circumstances even knowing that help is in the future from an investor or buyer - I am needing the funds to bring my account out of negative and hopefully to help with some of my payment plans to vendors, invoices!

I know this is all temporary and things will get better someday and for those who have helped my family in this incredibly difficult time, I thank you.

That said, if you have come into any of our shops and felt the love we have poured into every inch of our spaces I ask for your help now. If you have been inspired or found a brand that you love or felt a connection or joy that this community brings I beg if you have the resources to help lighten this load please do, I work tirelessly to try and cultivate something new and different and I have done it on my own - learning each lesson, being paid last and all with a smile on my face and now tears in my eyes. Any support whether it is a small monetary contribution, words of encouragement or just sharing this GoFundMe will help us tremendously in this critical time. Your support will allow us to do right to the makers that you know we support, continue to be a place of community, and champion those that are creating magic for us to enjoy in our lives.

Thank you for your support and kindness in this time - it means more than you'll ever know.

Forever thankful,

Monica

ALSO - as a THANK YOU we are offering some products to those who donate, I have attached here a spreadsheet with what is available - some items are limited - if you want to claim any of these items with your donation please say so in the comments and I will secure the item for you and coordinate next steps!

THANK YOU GIFT OPTIONS

https://bit.ly/44lK9Sk