She Did That and Stay Tuned

I finally watched the Netflix documentary She Did That. Have you seen it yet? It is amazing. It made me smile. This film was executive produced by Renee Bluitt, who is also one of the entrepreneurs featured in the film. First of all, hats off to her. What a magnificent feat. In addition to that, she brought in some "heavy hitters" and true examples of #BLACKGIRLMAGIC. I just love all of this GIRL POWER. One thing that I learned from my mom is that no one is going to give you anything. You have to get it yourself. This film illuminated the fact that black women entrepreneurs are the standard for business. 

Listen, my mom and dad paid for my first degree in English and I got scholarship for the second, but I have to be honest. I really do not write enough. (yikes) I read a lot of books. I have a collection of books on film making, script-writing, Black classics and a section of books on theology and spiritual growth. I love to hear the stories of so many brilliant Black women finding success in business. This documentary encourages women entrepreneurs to beat the odds by hearing the stories of their sisters who have achieved greatness. It was great to hear how many Black women were starting businesses and finding success. according to Forbes magazine, "There are 2.4 million African American women-owned businesses in 2018, most owned by women 35 to 54." That number included Preacher Girl Swag too. Yay! I loved hearing about Carol's Daughter and Melissa Butler's the Lip Bar as i watched the film. These are products that we have used. But it was more inspiring to hear that these phenomenal visionaries tell their own stories. I was inspired. In fact, I thought about how I could create a similar film.

Did you know that Preacher Girl Swag was started with $1500? I toke out an early retirement to fund our dreams and Toni lent me all of the Starbucks and dedication to make things happen. Toni is my  sister Antoinette, the fashionista and our co founder. She reminded me of the slogan from her alma mater Clark Atlanta University which says, "I'll find a way, or make one." In other words, she wanted me to look inward and get some guts to go harder for me. She advised me to turn my obstacles into an opportunity. She reminded me "to put some feet to my faith."- Eld Tyree Beard. She said that we were given so many gifts and it was time that we used what God gave us and that we had the power to change things. She was right.

It's now January 2020. I decided to reacquaint myself with my vision board from 2016. On this board, I listed books, degrees, shirts, foundations and businesses that I would form. Who knew that 2 years later we would muster up enough faith and courage to begin walking out these visions? I say "we" because I'm sure that you can empathize with my sentiments. But even more important to me, was the fact that my vision was starting to live. Is your vision alive? If not, its time to get to work. I know that I could never do Preacher Girl Swag without the leadership of my sister. I am the Preacher Girl with 20 years of ministry experience, and she is the fashionista/style maven, mother of 4 with the Swag. Fashion is her passion. Together we want to fulfill God's purpose for our lives by inspiring people to be a light, to be unique and to do it with the most SWAG. It feels great to live that vision everyday.

If you are wondering who we are, please keep reading. We are Preacher Girl Swag. We are two black girls who are sisters from the Southside of Chicago (You know, where Lady Michelle Obama grew up). We grew up on 87th and King Drive. We both worked for the Gap, Inc. That just means that we have folded shirts and jeans for a major company, and we  have some merchandising experience. We have both traveled overseas doing music ministry and social media ministry. We made a shirt about it that we will release soon--Love God, Love Travel. But when we started PGS, we wanted people to be inspired. Faith is our Swag.                                                  

While watching this film, I was elated. It resonated with me to be young entrepreneurs ourselves. We have experienced the struggle of getting the funding and finding our niche. (To this date not one bank has helped us get credit.) We did it ourselves and we built our clientele via friends, family and internet followers. I like to say that its been God's plan all along. This is not something we learned from a book. We had to just do it. We thank God for repeated customers who have been patient with us as we learned along the way. We know that FAITH--is all about SEEING and then DOING. You can't have faith and do NOTHING.  As the Bible says, "faith without works is dead." So we had to get an attorney, an accountant, a designer and a printer. I would love to say that all of those things were free, but they cost us. In the end, God made a way. We could not do this without our faith.

Here we are!   You and I- we are embarking on this new venture of blogging. 2020 is our year. This is the year that I document my thoughts, experiences and inspirations. This is how we will go beyond what you read on our shirts, what you may see at our preacharamas and what you may hear when I preach. This is the blank canvas that I will use to share what God is saying to me and all of us at Preacher Girl Swag. This is the medium that we will keep us connected.  I hope that you will take this journey with us.  

Stay tuned!