Hey you all, just a quick middle of the week update. Post updates typically come bi-weekly but this one is special so I apologize in advance if it's dropped out of the blue. As many of you already know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Before 2013, all this month meant to me is that I get to wear pink for a full 31 days without being judged (Sorry, I had to laugh at that) but on September 13th, 2013, October took a whole new meaning. The woman in the picture above is my late grandmother, Dorothy. Dorothy was a wholesome woman, protector, provider, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, great-great grandmother amongst many other things. To limit her to a couple titles is an injustice to her. She was without a doubt a once-in-a-generation type of person that you meet and are forever touched by. Anyone who knew her can attest to that statement with the utmost respect and agreement. When Grandma Genie wasn't whipping up turkey burgers and fries for her many grandchildren (that was her signature meal), she was giving advice like the matriarchal figure she was or tending to people her age or younger in a nursing home. That's the kind of strength Genie had. She was in good health her entire life and did that for a long long time. When I was growing up, Genie was the shoulder everyone leaned on (despite her small stature) and the person everyone rallied behind when the going got tough. She was in fact the baddest little 5 foot nothing woman I ever had the pleasure of meeting, and I mean that in the highest praise. Unfortunately, as tough as she was, cancer was tougher, but not instantly. This woman was so tough man, she beat cancer in her 70s. I literally thought she was a superhero and she made me feel like one too with all her high praise and constant love and affection that she sent my way whenever I came around. I can't remember a time when she was ever weak and she was always strong despite the circumstances. When she lost her son, Timothy Greer, she held strong. When she was diagnosed with cancer, she held strong, and I'm sure throughout her entire life she did just that: Held Strong. Unfortunately, like I stated before, cancer did eventually get the best of her, like it has gotten the best of 40,610 women annually. Around 9AM on Friday the 13th in September, I got the worst news of my life: Genie died, but her legacy did not. It took me a minute to process everything and it wasn't until her funeral that I believed she was really gone, but seeing the hundreds of people crowd into the small church we were in made everything feel okay. Seeing how one person could touch so many lives in such a big way was so significant and real to me as a young boy. This is just one of many stories like this and unfortunately, won't be the last, but I wanted to write this passage to help anyone who may have lost someone important to them in the same way that my family and I all did, or if they know someone who got breast cancer and beat it. If you don't already, now is the time to hug that person and acknowledge how appreciative you are of their presence and if they're already gone, now is the time to mourn and recognize the good memories you shared with that person. Make Me Over Beauty Supply's window display will be ramping up for this month by creating a display/memorial to all of the women who are no longer with us or beat cancer and are here to tell their story. We originally intended to only have a few pictures of family members in the display but we realized that once again, we are apart of the community and we are all family and one in the same. What that means is, bring a picture. Tell us their name and story. Talk to us about it and just like I'm crying while typing this post, cry if you need to. Remember what made you love them so much and remember what made you care about them as well. I'll be placing a picture of my favorite little lady in this whole wide world in the display, and I encourage all of you to do the same. We'll accept copies, prints, posterboards, anything. We would love to fill our display with all of our family photos of people who are no longer with us and to do that, we need your help not only in remembering the ones who are no longer with us, but in celebrating the ones who still are. That's all for today. To all my ladies out there, stay beautiful. To my guys, stay fly. To Grandma Genie, I love and miss you very much. For more information about breast cancer and how to donate to victims of it, please visit https://www.bcrf.org/ Together we can find a cure #LOVEPINK #LIVEPINK Elijah LoweSon, Student, God Fearing Man
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Make Me Over Beauty Supply Update #1 Wow! I can’t believe the outpouring of support we’ve been getting over the past few weeks! It’s truly surreal. Between my mom managing the beauty supply store, me taking care of the webpage, and all of the little intricacies of life that everyone deals with, it’s been nearly impossible to stick to the regular blog schedule! Thank you all for sticking by us while we gear up for the opening of the store! Here’s a few updates for you guys for the upcoming week: First and foremost….: GRAND OPENING IS IN 6 DAYS Don’t forget guys!!!! Clear your calendars, put your dogs in doggy day care, do whatever you gotta do, JUST MAKE SURE YOU’RE AT THIS EVENT!!! There’s gonna be a lot of cool stuff going on so you do not want to miss that. (If you don’t have a flyer yet, I’ll be attaching an additional full size flyer so you all can get your 10% off coupon) COME ONE COME ALL!!!! There’s no reason why all of York shouldn’t be there! Up next is a personal project I’ll be working on in the margins of my wild schedule. A lot of people have been asking so we’re officially………… ADDING AN ONLINE STORE That’s right! You asked, and somehow,someway, we’re going to deliver! Bare with us as we surely weren’t expecting to have people from all over asking to have things shipped to them. Shout out to Quaseim Lowe for the increased exposure and the push we needed to let us know we need to speed up the process! Also, we’ve got a few cool partners coming through the shop, so I wanted to give them a quick shoutout! Black-Owned Businesses of the week Each week we’ll be picking two black owned businesses in York or in the surrounding area to showcase and bring a new audience to! This will eventually be getting its own post in addition to the weekly updates so be on the lookout for these as well! JOANNE EKELEDO Joanne stopped into the shop this week and told my mom all about her bed and breakfast and snapped a nice picture of me as well! It’s called Grace Manor Bed and Breakfast and is located right here in York! For more information about her business http://www.gracemanorbandb.com/ ARTHUR PARKER Arthur Parker is a black fashion designer. His label, ParQuer Fashion is based out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Arthur also stopped in this week to discuss a future collaboration with Make Me Over, so be on the lookout for that. Here’s some of his work attached below. If you want to order something super cool from him, his etsy shop is www.etsy.com/shop/parquerfashion That’s all for the week, folks! To my ladies, stay beautiful, and to my guys out there, stay fly If you’re here right now reading our blog, thank you. My name is Elijah Lowe, I’m Ronda’s nineteen year old son. When I'm not studying for my degree or working, I'll be down at mom's shop helping with her all the technical stuff (Ask her about what I did to her cash drawer (also ask her who fixed her receipt printer and pole display. Gotta give credit where it's due) and reeling in random strangers off the street to come support my mom in her endeavors to become the first majorly successful black owned beauty supply store in York. In my mind, my mom can be the biggest beauty supply store in the entire world, but I'm a little (maybe a lotta) biased. To be fair, Ronda (I reserve the right to call her this from a business standpoint, that's still my momma though <3) is a lot of things. She's eloquent, intelligent, sharp on all sides, and she's a loving (albeit a bit forgetful at times) mother. Aside from all these things, she's York's first beauty supply store owner to receive this kind of outpouring of unconditional support, love, and congratulatory messages. It's truly a beautiful thing to stand by and watch my mom's face light up as she says "Business is booming I've got a wig to style and a makeup consultation and someone bought a wig and someone bought some weave and and and and." It's a bit sporadic at times, and it's nothing less than hectic to try and keep up, but I love to hear it. For so long, my mom has gotten the short end of things. Even the process to open up was a journey, but she has arrived, York County. Ronda Greer is here and I can say on her behalf she's here to stay and even expand. Enough about her and I though (this is a thank you after all), and more about you. Without you, there is no Make Me Over and there is no reason to be here. In the past half year, there’s been setbacks, diversions, and a host of different issues that have plagued my mom getting the store up and running, but she stuck to it. The highs and lows brought us and you, the consumer, together. To those who kept asking “When are you opening?” or those who even said a few encouraging words about how great of an idea it was before anything even moved, thank you. We are in the soft opening phase at the moment, but September 29th is where things get real, and I hope that you all will come down and support the movement. Black-owned businesses are things that have been coined as a novelty instead of a true, integral commodity to a community. We live, breathe, and work in our cities just to give the money back to different organizations. Why not give back to ourselves and fund our own people? The beauty lies in that. This is for us, by us, and I hope you all see the vision that my mom set out to craft just in the way that I saw it when she pitched the idea in the first place. Beauty is internal and external, and seeing all of the beautiful people come in and out of the store and interacting with them over the past few days has been exhilarating on my end. Being able to look at the pride and excitement in their faces as they rang up their first items in our newly opened store gave me a rush! So many women, men and children came in and couldn’t wait to tell their friends that there was a black owned beauty supply store right in York, and for that we thank you for as well. To Marissa Wilson, Natalie Jones, Kheaa Anderson, Dionne Romey, Brineshia McNealy, Nicole Peart, Christina Smith, and anyone else that wrote a post, shared, or even glanced at our Facebook page at all, I appreciate you all so much for sending my mom your condolences (and hopefully, eventual business!). This whole experience has been humbling and all around fun to be apart of and I can’t wait to see the future of what is to come for my mom and her creation. The community is the lifeblood of Make Me Over Beauty Supply and if we’re going to be a thriving black-owned business in York County, this is the kind of everlasting, unconditional support that we need. I look forward to seeing you all, and I hope our community continues to exponentially grow. For now, let’s build, laugh, love and grow. See you all back in a week!
Warm Regards, Elijah Lowe |