ODB/Homefield Apparel Partnership

ODB/Homefield Apparel Partnership - Our Daily Bears

ODB/Homefield Apparel Partnership - Our Daily Bears
Christian apparel store starts in Sibley | News - nwestiowa.com
Prom Mobile: Prom store offers free apparel | Local News - Mcalester News Capital
Tech, Apparel Profits Could Be Hardest Hit by Supply-Chain Shocks - Barron's

ODB/Homefield Apparel Partnership - Our Daily Bears

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 08:21 AM PST

We've partnered with Homefield Apparel to bring some great Baylor products to you. You can buy the products by clicking this link.

If you use that link and code ODB the products are 20% off.

We partnered with them for a host of reasons. First, they have some very unique designs. They have the new mascot design, and they have shirts that aren't just traditional sayings. Second, the products are incredibly comfortable and don't shrink. When you buy from them, you'll get a quality product. Third, they give us some design leeway. So if you have ideas you want put on a shirt, we can hit them up with ideas.

Christian apparel store starts in Sibley | News - nwestiowa.com

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 06:00 PM PST

SIBLEY—Anthony Dagel and Lynette Visser credit God for saving their lives and bringing them together to promote and spread His Word.

The Sibley couple are the founders of Salvator Clothing and Ministries, a Christian apparel company they launched on Feb. 11. Salvator is the Latin word for Saviour.

"It's more us as individuals who know that we need God's help and God's love in our life," Dagel said. "We want to spread that positive message. Our target audience is other people who know that they need God's grace in their life."

The 44-year-old Visser described the clothing product line of hats, hoodies and shirts she and the 42-year-old Dagel have put together.

"Our main focus is to design shirts — custom-made shirts — with God's Word on it," Visser said.

When people, businesses or organizations order apparel from Dagel and Visser, they have a choice as to whom they would like to make a donation to, such as veterans, drug recovery and school lunch programs.

"Whatever money we make, a percentage either goes back to a church, back to a youth group," Visser said. "There's a lot of charity work we want to do through this. That's the ministries — just giving it back.

"We do corporate clothing and branded clothing for businesses," she said. "What makes us different is that we give to charities and missions on their behalf or to the charity and or mission of their choice."

'Get the Word out'

Dagel and Visser want to take their online-only for-profit business nationwide and beyond.

"My goal is to do a million shirts before the end of the year — to get the Word out," Visser said. "Iowa, as a predominantly Christian state, can take the lead on it and set an example.

"If everybody pulls together, we can make an example for the rest of the country by putting our money where our mouth is and putting emphasis on these programs that are usually under the radar," she said.

She and Dagel want to give back and support the people who need it the most — the forgotten, the lonely, the wounded and the outcast.

"They're usually pushed aside in society," Visser said. "I find that it happens here often. People overlook the recovery programs or the veterans.

"We need to focus more on them and bring not only awareness, but actually we can take action and help people," she said.

The couple also have started the Salvator Scholarship Program for students and missionaries who want to further their education in God's Kingdom.

"Anybody that wants to do it — we will sponsor those," Visser said.

She was inspired to create Salvator Clothing and Ministries with Dagel because of another clothing business she used to own.

"It was a streetwear company and I didn't feel passionate about it," Visser said. "For me, it didn't work."

She came up with the idea for the Christian apparel business in late December and discussed it with Dagel before they decided to pursue it.

"It was something I wanted to do," Visser said. "We prayed about it a lot. We want to be actively involved in changing people's lives or helping people and letting them focus on Jesus and not on the world."

Visser handles updating the company's website and marketing the apparel while Dagel creates the designs — including the business' logo — for the clothing they sell.

"I like the fact that she's putting up the stuff that I've designed on to a page and we're getting positive feedback from everybody who's looked at it," Dagel said.

"My pride and my warmth comes from knowing that the biggest message I get from the Bible is you're going to flourish by spreading God's Word," he said.

'Prayed about it a lot'

The couple are passionate about promoting and spreading God's Word.

"It's not all about the money we make," Dagel said. "It's more about just being in God's good grace and knowing that we're doing something positive for the nation and the world."

Visser thanked God for allowing her to emigrate with her two children in June 2018 from her native South Africa to the United States.

"God has played a phenomenal part in my life," Visser said. "Saving my life was one of the things that made me come to this point."

She left South Africa with her children because she feared for her and her kids' lives due to underlying racial tensions between the country's black and white people.

"We were in grave danger," Visser said. "We were helped by U.S. citizens, which was really nice. I had to apply for asylum, which we were granted."

She is in the process of working toward becoming a U.S. citizen.

"I've been adopted by your nation, if I could say that," Visser said. "Asylum is an adoption process basically."

She recalled feeling a lot of anxiety at first when she moved from her homeland to a foreign country across the Atlantic Ocean.

"You have to adapt," Visser said. "I learned that our cultures are different. The only thing I could go back to was I started praying again."

She needed God to tell her why she was in the United States because she did not like living in another nation.

"It was hard for me; it was hard for my kids," Visser said. "I've prayed about it a lot and the only thing I could do was I knew I could work for myself."

She worked for the South African government before she left for the United States.

"I did a lot of agricultural research and development," Visser said. "That's also why I ended up in Iowa. I thought I could apply those skills."

However, that turned out to be not the case.

"The agricultural sectors are so different," Visser said. "It's not really applicable, so I had to find something that I could dedicate to and succeed with."

'We work well together'

That led her and Dagel to create Salvator Clothing and Ministries.

"This would not work without him," Visser said. "We've put it up together as a partnership."

"We both have our own strengths," Dagel said. "We work well together."

Visser met Dagel in July through mutual friends in Sibley. He had just moved back to his hometown in 2018 after living in Colorado for about 16 years.

"I didn't want to meet anybody at the time," Visser said. "Then I met him and I thought, 'He's not so bad.' He's a good guy. He's been a rock in my life."

Like Visser, Dagel credits God with saving his life. He is a recovering drug addict who has been clean for about three years.

"I checked myself into treatment about two years ago — I was clean for a year before I even went to treatment — but I figured I needed to do that just for my own benefit," Dagel said.

He entered the drug abuse treatment program with a clean and sober mind.

"I got a lot out of it," Dagel said. "I knew I felt God's touch basically. It does sound a little cheesy, but I did feel a presence with me, giving me strength to get through it.

"There was some strength driving me through the whole process and I took so much out of it," he said. "He was definitely there with me; I never would have made it by myself."

The trials and tribulations in Dagel and Visser's lives have brought them together to create a new life for themselves as they promote and spread God's Word through their Christian apparel company.

Dagel has four children — Parker, 21; Evan, 15; Joel, 13; and Lance, 10 — and Visser has two kids — Rozane, 19, and Ethan, 12 — from previous relationships.

The two families have mixed together well and the children have been helping the couple as they have started Salvator Clothing and Ministries.

"I've received a lot from the community and a lot from people," Visser said. "My whole idea was to give back. God saved my life many, many times before.

"For me, it's a way of giving back, but not wanting to advertise the fact that I would give back," she said. "It's just really something I really wanted to do."

Prom Mobile: Prom store offers free apparel | Local News - Mcalester News Capital

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 03:30 AM PST

A couple of girls smile and talk with armfuls of dresses they plan to try on at an event at the Latimer County. A mother and a daughter sift through colorful evening gowns with the girl's bored younger brother in tow. An eager teenage girl hurries from rack-to-rack thinking about what she could wear at her prom.

These were scenes from the recent Prom Mobile — a free mobile store produced by the Southeastern Public Library System of Oklahoma that offers prom apparel free of charge to all teenage girls and boys.

Regardless of their income, the young women are allowed to come and try on any of the prom dresses that they would like and then take one home for free. The only thing the families have to do is sign their names on a sign-in sheet and then take their items home.

"Prom is so expensive for families and so many kiddos don't have the opportunity to go," stated Julie Horton, the Outreach coordinator for the Prom Mobile and assistant manager at the McAlester Public Library, "so it's just a way to help our community families afford prom."

The Prom Mobile started last year at the McAlester Public Library. The McAlester youth librarian, Yuliya Zhughina, was the one that had the initial idea to spare the young girls and their families of the usual expenses of prom and with the help of Horton, they got the program started. Last year during the month of March, since the project had not become mobile yet, they had half of one of their programming rooms set up as a continuous prom store.

This is the first year for the McAlester Public Library personnel to take the store on the road. When they reach their location, they unpack their items and set up racks of evening gowns and tables in certain library parking lots for a few hours. Once they are done, they will then pack everything up and head to the next location. They decided to make the store mobile because there isn't enough room in most libraries to set up one of the stores for an entire month. The only location that will not take place in a library's parking lot will be at the McAlester location, where it will take place in the actual library.

Besides dresses, the Prom Mobile also offers shoes, men's slacks, dress shirts, books, and other items and accessories. If you come to one of the events and you do not have a library card with the Southeastern Public Library System of Oklahoma you can sign up to receive a library card and you will be placed in a drawing for a chance to win some door prizes.

Tech, Apparel Profits Could Be Hardest Hit by Supply-Chain Shocks - Barron's

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 09:38 AM PST

Photograph by Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

Tariffs gummed up global trade routes over the past two years. The coronavirus has now frozen them.

This has the potential to cause an economic shock unlike those that led to recessions in the recent past: the oil spike in 1991 that hit consumer wallets or the credit crunch in 2008 that seized up lending markets. The coronavirus has severely disrupted nearly every link in the global supply chain, from raw materials to components to finished goods, which could lead to curtailed production, product shortages, and financial stress across a range of industries. How manufacturing delays ripple through the economy isn't so straightforward, however.

Tech companies, apparel makers, and industrial-equipment manufacturers are likely to be hurt most, given that they are most reliant on inputs from China and Southeast Asia. A prolonged delay in parts procurement not only would threaten corporate earnings, but could imperil companies' ability to make debt payments.

Among individual companies, Apple (ticker: AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT) warned investors in February that they would miss sales estimates because of supply-chain problems, but didn't put numbers on the impact. Expect more such warnings in coming weeks.

"In the last two decades, China became the factory of the world," says Girish Rishi, CEO of supply-chain software provider and consultant Blue Yonder. "Consumer packaged goods, automotive, apparel, high-tech. I can't tell you which sector is not getting impacted."

That is particularly true now that the virus has spread to other major manufacturing hubs such as South Korea, and Japan, and is starting to move through Europe. China, South Korea, and Japan together account for more than a quarter of U.S. imports—and more than half of American imports of computer and electronics products.

On Thursday, Goldman Sachs revised its U.S. corporate earnings growth estimates down to zero, largely because of supply-chain worries. February survey data show that shipment times from Japan and Europe are already "increasing substantially," Goldman noted.

Analysts initially quantified the direct impact of the coronavirus on the economy, expecting it would almost exclusively affect China and not spread widely in other nations. The economic dent in that case was relatively simple to pinpoint. Estimates tended to range from $150 billion to $400 billion, or less than 0.5% of global gross domestic product.

Under that scenario, the industries most affected would include travel and tourism providers, and consumer companies selling into China. Shares of the two U.S. companies with the most direct exposure to China as a percentage of sales— Yum China Holdings (YUMC) and Wynn Resorts (WYNN)—have fallen more sharply than the broader market.

Oil companies are reeling, too, because China is the world's largest petroleum importer. Crude has fallen more than 20% since the start of the year.

Consumers, who account for 70% of U.S. economic activity, might not see the impact of supply-chain disruptions immediately. Instead, inventory shortages would start to show up in company sales. "If your sales are slipping, you're going to be more reluctant to bring on new workers," Wells Fargo economist Sarah House says.

An earnings shortfall might also hit balance sheets. "We've seen the financial position of the corporate sector deteriorate over the past couple of years," she says. "Interest coverage on debt has been eroding. A potential shock to earnings could influence their ability to cover that interest expense."

More than a dozen companies in myriad industries—from technology to toothpaste, agriculture, and toys — have told investors that the coronavirus is disrupting their supply chains. Some have said they are expecting an impact on earnings, but few have quantified that. "Trying to size perfectly the coronavirus impact at this point is incredibly difficult," CEO Corie Barry said on Best Buy's (BBY) fourth-quarter earnings call Thursday.

The impact on earnings could vary widely by sector. "Where industries are more balanced in their global footprint for suppliers and manufacturing, they have options," Rishi says.

The auto industry is relatively insulated from supply disruption, for instance, because several companies have built regional factories to serve local markets, he noted. "My concern right now is really for consumer packaged-goods companies and retailers who have a higher concentration of goods coming from China," he says.

Apparel and footwear companies are in particular trouble, says analyst John Kernan, an analyst at Cowen. They source about 30% of their goods from China, and other countries in the chain often get raw materials from there. "The supply chain emanates out of Southeast Asia, and China in particular," Kernan says. "It's not just the factories. A lot of the materials that go to Bangladesh and Vietnam and other areas emanate from China. It's a mess."

So far, retailers' shelves aren't going empty, but that might not be far off, he warns. "Eventually, you'll have a slowdown in goods coming into the country."

Apparel companies were trading at high valuations coming into the year, adding to the risk in their stocks. "A lot of companies across my space will have to issue guidance reductions," he says.

Consumer products manufacturers already are discussing delaying product introductions. Normally, they start ramping up new fall launches in January or February, says Suketu Gandhi, leader of the digital supply-chain group at the consulting firm Kearney: "The whole thing is pushed out at least four months."

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Manufacturing companies are also likely to be affected. Engine-maker Cummins ( CMI), Lincoln Electric Holdings (LECO), and industrial-equipment maker Terex (TEX) said at a recent conference that the virus could hurt first-quarter earnings and "spoke to something much more broad-based (i.e. supply chain, customer start-up issues) if it's not contained in weeks, let alone months," writes Barclays analyst Adam Seiden. "The virus has flipped a positive to a likely negative that's not yet reflected in most estimates."

Tech is threatened, too, and it's not only big companies such as Apple and Microsoft. Tech equipment maker Jabil (JBL), an important cog in the supply chain for companies including Amazon.com (AMZN), withdrew its financial guidance Tuesday and said that impacted factories were running at just 65% to 70% of capacity.

Potential disruptions could be worse had companies not been paying more attention to their supply chains due to the U.S.-China trade spat. Multinationals have been working on diversifying them for the past three years as U.S. tariffs ramped up.

"At least compared to prior periods of supply-chain disruption, companies seem to be better prepared in terms of their inventory levels," House says. "That suggests that there's a little bit more time for this to get sorted out and for shipping and production to resume before we start to see it in the data."

Write to Avi Salzman at avi.salzman@barrons.com