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Pink Sheep Boutique Now Open On Columbiana Main Street
Published 11:25 am Monday, May 6, 2024
By DONALD MOTTERNStaff Writer
COLUMBIANA – Shoppers on Columbiana's Main Street are now welcome to stop inside and experience the newest store in town following the latest announcement from its owner and operator, Holli Pierce.
The Pink Sheep Boutique, a children's clothing and gift store that has operated a successful online store for more than five years, has now opened its new physical brick-and-mortar location following a remodel of the building's interior.
With the storefront opening for the first time to the public on Monday, May 6, shoppers were welcome from 10 a.M. To 4 p.M. To peruse all that the Pink Sheep Boutique had to offer. Pierce also shared that while the store will be open this week, the store's "Grand Opening" will be held on Saturday, May 11.
On the business's Facebook page, the announcement of the storefront's opening was met with large amounts of interest and compliments, with many comments focusing on the work that had been put into the store and its entrance.
For Pierce, the opening of the business's physical location is a major milestone and a harbinger of future success.
"This summer will be seven years that I have been (running the business)," Pierce said. "A lot of people think that I'm a completely new business—that I'm a new store just coming to Main Street, but I actually already have a well-established online business. I'm finally at the point where the online business can float my new venture in a storefront."
Pierce grew up in the Shelby-Columbiana area, graduated from Shelby County High School and now lives just outside of Columbiana in Shelby.
"I had our first baby in 2015 and when she was getting close to turning two years old I just felt like I couldn't find anything for her," Pierce said. "I felt like there was nowhere to really shop that had everything that tickled my fancy. I couldn't really find what I was looking for around here (in our area). So, I just started a store on a whim one night that was mainly (tailored for) my child—and to dress her."
From there, Pierce's small operation grew and became larger before having another child the next year after starting her business. She now has three children and has fully transformed her passion for dressing her own children into a marketable service she can roll out to others in the community.
"I love helping people dress their own kids," Pierce said. "I love when people ask me for help in picking out an item—picking items out for pictures or a birthday or a gift. I just think it is fun."
Going for a timeless style of children's clothing that invokes traditional southern charms, she sources her inventory through Atlanta Market and AmericasMart, a wholesaler that proclaims itself as the world's largest collection of wholesale gift, décor and apparel showrooms.
Pink Sheep Boutique's brick-and-mortar location stands at 103 South Main Street, and has now joined Main Street as the store between Sweet Tweets Bird Supply and the Farm Company.
"I leased the building at the end of last year—this past December," Pierce said. "It has taken us a while to get it ready and to get it up to my standards and to fit my vibe. (The store) has new floors, new paint and cosmetics upgrades. I've made it match my aesthetic with the white and the light pink and pale blues and all of that."
Pierce has also been excited about incorporating her tastes and inputs toward the exterior of the storefront which has involved the planting of new flowers and maintaining the planters outside the front door.
"I know so many people already and one of the things that I'm most excited about is getting to be a member of the Main Street Board and just doing things to better Main Street," Pierce said.
Pierce voiced that the store's opening now serves as the ultimate mark of success for her business and that she has no other intentions to grow or leave the community she has called home. Pierce also hopes to see her store inspire others and causes them to join her on Main Street.
"I really hope that other stores are soon to follow and come to the vacant buildings that are there," Pierce said. "I just really hope that once people see another new store come that others will follow."
The Pink Sheep Boutique will be open for business from Tuesday through Saturday every week and will be closed on Sundays and Mondays. The store's grand opening will take place over the course of Saturday, May 11. While parking is available on Main Street, Pierce has also reminded shoppers that parking is available behind the store as well.
Styled With Strength Boutique Aims To Help Abuse Victims — One T-shirt Sale At A Time
WEST FARGO — Jodi Jordheim appeared to be on top of the world.
Eleven years ago, the then-25 year old was briskly climbing the corporate ladder at Victoria's Secret in Fargo, where she was one of the top 10 store managers in the whole company.
But she had another kind of secret.
"I was in a three-year relationship that was extremely emotionally, verbally and physically abusive," Jordheim said.
In April of 2013, while a blizzard raged outside, Jordheim's carefully compartmentalized life fell apart. Her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend came home to discover Jordheim's then-partner attacking her.
They called 911 and the police intervened. Jordheim found herself being interviewed by officers, getting photographed to show the bruises on her body and "giving an account of this hell that I'd walked the last three years," she said.
She was referred to Fargo's Rape & Abuse Crisis Center, which started her on a path toward healing.
It took a few more years — along with a loving husband, a beautiful baby boy and another impressive corporate job — until Jordheim felt she could open up about her past.
"That part of my story was just kind of tucked back in the closet," she said. "I grew up in poverty, with a single mom. So I kind of had all these other things that I felt were messy enough."
But Jordheim would leverage what she learned from that past trauma — along with her natural gifts for organizing, communicating and inspiring teams — to launch a nonprofit for domestic violence survivors called Styled with Strength.
At its simplest, Styled with Strength is a pop-up boutique located in Suite 107 of the Northern Lights Building at 2920 Sheyenne St. In West Fargo.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
The front showroom is an Instagram-worthy collection of Dreamsicle-hued tees, trendy bangles, chapsticks by women-owned companies, cute tchotchkes, anxiety devotionals and break-up journals.
But look closer, and it's much more. In fact, Styled with Strength's many missions are so plentiful that it takes times to grasp it all.
"We're kind of a walk around the block. We're not an elevator pitch," Jordheim said, grinning.
Sales from the boutique help fund Styled with Strength's many initiatives, which range from informal family dinners for abuse survivors and their children to helping a victim find an affordable apartment despite poor credit.
The shop also provides a friendly, non-threatening space where a survivor could connect with one of Styled with Strength's peer support specialists, mentors or trained volunteers.
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
In some cases, Jordheim said the abused person may feel less intimidated to approach a friendly-looking helper at the shop than to walk into a police station or shelter.
"The goal of the shop is to start to break down those walls for those who may not be willing to go to Rape & Abuse Crisis Center or YWCA, but they might be able to take that first step with us," Jordheim said. "But we have a great partnership with those organizations so we can help them navigate that route when they're ready."
Sidney Compton, a Styled with Strength board member, said she's amazed to see how women open up in the shop's friendly, welcoming environment. "The amount of time clients have come in and have just been an open book is really remarkable," Compton said. "It shows me that this is a safe space and they feel it almost immediately, whether I'm a stranger or not. That shows what Jodi has done is working."
Alyssa Goelzer/The Forum
More recently, Styled with Strength has taken on some larger projects, such as helping a woman sell her home after she had successfully completed an escape plan and divorced her abuser.
"I couldn't reconcile someone who had done all the work to achieve freedom and to protect her children, having to go back to a place and fix someone else's mistakes and someone else's anger," Jordheim said.
And so volunteers gathered to fix holes in walls and broken door frames and do whatever was needed to make the house ready for the sales block.
"Our goal is that the shop kind of keeps that door open, but also through the family dinners and connecting with community, they truly feel they are a part of this because they are," Jordheim said.
Learn more about Styled with Strength by calling 701-760-4565 or searching for "shestyledwithstrength" on Facebook.
For 35 years, Tammy Swift has shared all stages of her life through a weekly personal column. Her first "real world" job involved founding and running the Bismarck Tribune's Dickinson bureau from her apartment. She has worked at The Forum four different times, during which she's produced everything from food stories and movie reviews to breaking news and business stories. Her work has won awards from the Minnesota and North Dakota Newspaper Associations, the Society for Professional Journalists and the Dakotas Associated Press Managing Editors News Contest. As a business reporter, she gravitates toward personality profiles, cottage industry stories, small-town business features or anything quirky. She can be reached at tswift@forumcomm.Com.Steve Cahalan: Sparta Gets A New Boutique, While Downtown La Crosse Will See A New Cafe
Steve Cahalan For the La Crosse Tribune
After 17 years in the health care industry, Angela Kast began a new career by opening her Harvest Moon Boutique on April 20 at 106 E. Main St. In downtown Sparta.
The boutique sells women's apparel, shoes, jewelry, home decor, travel mugs, gifts and fragrant natural soy candles and melts. The candles and melts are made by Kast's husband, Andrew Kast, and in the past have been sold under the Kastwick Candles name. That name will continue, but some of the candles and melts will bear the Harvest Moon name.
The Kasts bought the Sparta building in January and extensively renovated it.
They chose Sparta for the boutique "because we live in Leon and my husband is originally from this area," said Angela Kast, who grew up on a dairy farm outside Westby. "We felt it was necessary to support our local businesses and become part of the downtown. It's growing, with new restaurants and different things, and we wanted to be part of that and offer our services."
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Angela Kast opened her Harvest Moon Boutique on April 20 in this building at 106 E. Main St. In downtown Sparta. She and her husband, Andrew, bought the building in January and extensively renovated it.
Contributed photoAngela Kast had been an ophthalmic technician, most recently at Mayo Clinic Health System in Tomah, before leaving that occupation in March to start the boutique. "I was ready for a change in pace," and for the ability to spend more time with family, she said.
The boutique's regular hours are 10 a.M. To 5 p.M. Wednesday through Friday, 10 a.M. To 3 p.M. Saturday and closed Sunday through Tuesday. Its grand opening celebration will be on July 13.
For more information, call 608-487-5952 or visit the store's Facebook page.
Samantha Sveum plans to open her new NOM Sips & Eats cafe on May 21 in part of the Meringue Bakery's storefront at 313 Main St. In downtown La Crosse.
But don't worry – Jen Barney told me her bakery will remain in business there. The only major menu change is that Meringue Bakery will no longer serve coffee beverages, because those will be a focus of Sveum's new business.
Sveum told me her new business will offer specialty coffee beverages, smoothies and acai and other superfood sorbet bowls. A few weeks after it opens, it will add more food items such as Buddha bowls, breakfast paninis and avocado toast.
Sveum is closing her Butternut Road Coffee Co. Coffee truck and coffee delivery business as she gets ready to open her new cafe. She started that business four years ago. It was based in Spring Green until last October. Sveum moved to La Crosse and has been operating Butternut from the Coulee Region Business Center, also known as the city's business incubator.
NOM will be open Tuesday through Sunday. For more information, visit NOM'S Facebook page. Sveum is working on a website.
••• WK Alterations opened Wednesday across from the Bath & Body Works store in Valley View Mall in La Crosse.
The new business is owned by Kaying Xiong, who was born and raised in Thailand. She told me that she has been sewing for about 30 years, for herself and for others.
WK Alterations provides clothing alterations and repairs. And it sells colorful merchandise such as wall hangings, pot holders, purses and wallets, all made by Xiong.
Hours are 10 a.M. To 5 p.M. Tuesday through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday. For more information, call the new shop at 608-779-0637 or visit its Facebook page.
I saw this week on the www.Burlington.Com/grand-openings webpage that the new Burlington Store at 9344 State Road 16 in the Crosseroads Center in Onalaska is expected to open Oct. 18.
About half of the former T.J. Maxx/HomeGoods storefront is being remodeled into a Burlington Store. (T.J. Maxx and HomeGoods moved to separate stores that opened March 14 in the expanded former Shopko department store building at 9366 State Road 16 in Onalaska.)
Burlington Stores formerly was known as Burlington Coat Factory. It has more than 1,000 stores, which sell apparel, baby items, beauty products, footwear, accessories, toys, gifts and coats.
Becky Montpetit of Rochester, Minn., bought the La Crosse Local resource website for La Crosse-area residents and visitors in January, and said this week that it has relaunched with a new look and exciting features.
It features such things as an event calendar, La Crosse guides and resources, and community highlights. Its site director is Andrea Roen, who lives in La Crosse, where she was born and raised.
Montpetit also owns Rochester Local and Twin Cities Mom.
For more information, visit www.Lacrosselocal.Com.
Steve Cahalan writes about business news and can be reached at stevecahalan.Reporter@gmail.Com.
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