To Our Shop Good Family - Summarizing a year with as many twists, turns, stops, starts and challenges has felt like an impossible feat, but here I am - attempting to assign words to the thousands of emotions that were felt in 2020. Whether you were a new mom and small business owner like me or a teacher, a parent, a front line healthcare warrior, an essential grocery store clerk, a member of the LGBTQIA community, or a Black man or woman... this year felt heavy, sticky and difficult to navigate for so many individuals in varying ways. But there is one common denominator we all share regardless of who we are. The fact is, we are all stronger right now, in this very moment, than we have ever been before. We had no choice but to grow and stretch and push out of the bare bones of our comfort zones given the year’s events. And doesn’t that feel good to acknowledge? The Shop Good brand is no exception to this. As most of you know, Shop Good is a beauty and wellness boutique - initially out to support you in looking and feeling your very best utilizing all natural ingredients! But, in 2020, this brand grew out of its infancy in unplanned and unprecedented ways. Shop Good took on its innate responsibility to show up for you. To be there for you and meet you where you needed us to be. And with our stores and spas mandated to close for 4 and 7 months of the year, respectively, we were forced to evolve how we accomplished this. We kept our community informed and stayed transparent via Instagram. Our spas showed up on your bathroom counters in the form of At Home Facial Packages. Our Estheticians popped into your living rooms via Virtual Skin Consultations and Zoom events. And our self-care-inducing products traveled to you via touchless curbside pickup and free shipping, across all 50 states. Shop Good also grew stronger by following through with the necessary changes and commitments we made to you in June, on a mission to stand up as an anti-racist and equitable brand for all. We’re proud to have welcomed 26 additional Black-owned products to our shelves, bringing our Black-owned contribution to 10% of our assortment, with more exciting partners on the way. We added all available shade extensions in our makeup offerings. We grew our offering of accessible price points across skincare, wellness and lifestyle. Our team launched our internal efforts to encourage our own learning, unlearning and awareness of our own privileges through internal monthly email digests, the launch of our Shop Good Library, and actively seeking diverse candidates for open positions on our team. We’re proud of the increasingly diverse range of models of color in our brand imagery, the conversations we’ve had with those with unique backgrounds and perspectives via our Good Talks interview series, and especially proud to have contributed to the SD Bail Fund, I am a Voter, Random Acts of Kindness, all while donating almost $400 to the Loveland Therapy Foundation, solely with the additional change you’ve graciously added to your Shop Good orders via our Round Up for Change Initiative. Finally, I felt the weight of my own growth, too. During the process of becoming a first-time mom while keeping my first baby (my business) alive. I stretched myself and learned how to get comfortable with letting go of what I thought it would look like, while remaining positive and in-action for my team, no matter how many doubts or bouts of anxiety I had behind the scenes. I learned (and am continuing to learn) how to acknowledge the privilege I grew up with and intentionally use that to call out racist views and lift up those that have been marginalized. I’ll never forget defining visions of 2020: unshowered for days, nursing Cleo in one arm, meeting with my team via Zoom on how best serve our community, clients and employees... and taking notes with the other arm. I remember the wash of fear for our survival... and then the flat out awe of the way YOU all turned out and supported us. We are still here, because of you. Every online order, every visit to our stores, every share on Instagram, every review on Yelp and every message of encouragement and love... these acts of support kept our team going and kept me believing that Shop Good could survive. Thank you for the way you showed up for us in 2020. I am forever grateful. We are still here because of the incredible Shop Good team who kept our stores operating, packages shipping and skin-support continuing. It is my greatest honor to work alongside the selfless, creative and passionate women that make up our #shopgoodgang. So, as I sit here in the present moment, I am filled with love, gratitude and strength as I anxiously turn the page to a new year. I realize that our source of power is not in the past, mourning what this year was supposed to look like, or in the future, projecting how strong we will be once this is all ‘over’. Rather, our power can be found in the ‘right now’. We’re collectively stronger than ever before and the source of that resolute strength can most profoundly be accessed in this very present moment.
I look forward to sharing more moments of strength with you in 2021.
Love,
Leah
With Love, From Leah: 2020 Year End Letter
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