Vanier Junior Achievement 2022 - From Soup To Sweat Suits (Part Three)

By Robert Thomas

This year’s edition of Vanier Entrepreneurship 30 class, Junior Achievement, features everything from home blended soup to sweats. In this third part of a three part story we feature the clothing company Prairie Sky Apparel.

Part Three of a Three Part Series

The quickly set up clothing company Prairie Sky Apparel is hoping to cash in big time with a locally designed catchy logo, wide choice of colours, as well as clothing that is practical as well as available in a wide range of sizes.

The people behind the brand - and there are a lot of them - are hoping to have a likewise major impact with their casual clothing line.

“The reason we came up with the idea for Prairie Sky Apparel is with the winter season coming up we want people to feel cozy, comfortable and we wanted to make sure everyone had clothing including the less fortunate,” Kate Waldenberger co-president at Prairie Sky Apparel told MJ Independent.

“And that is why we have our prices at a good nice price and we wanted everyone to give back to the community,” she said.

Grade 11 year old Colby Clark is also a co-president with Prairie Sky Apparel said he enrolled in Entrepreneurship 30 as a practical stepping stone to his dreams.

“I took Entrepreneurship 30 just to get my hands onto a business and learn about how a business is run and what we need to do,” he said, adding “especially to my future. I want to be an entrepreneur and start my own business.”

Clark said he would like to unite his interest and skills in sport to get into a business tailored to fit into that role.

“I am thinking about clothing or a sports shop. Its an area (I am good at). I am big athlete and I figure it would be right up my alley.”

Asked about what demographic he would aim for in his future business he said he would do the same marketing strategy as Prairie Sky Apparel and hope to attract everyone from young to old.

“I would aim it towards everybody. I am a multi-sport athlete and so here I would aim it at a multi-cultural sports store in that way,” Clark said.

Claire Sadsad is Prairie Sky Apparel’s social media and marketing manager and she said the workload was lighter because she is not the only person in charge of the social media strategy.

“The social media took me at least an hour in every post. Both me and Ella, also a social media person in our group, we come up with content every single day. And come out with at least one goal each day and one post a day,” she said.

The people behind Prairie Sky Apparel - MJ Independent photo

The company is not only relying on the standard Facebook page but also is highly active in the youth oriented social media network - TikTok.

Asked if she liked the business or the social media portion of her assignment in the company she said it was not a like or hate proposition.

“That’s a good question. I actually like both. To be honest I also work with graphic design and I think of myself as a very creative person and I want to share my artistic abilities out there by showing it to social media programs like Instagram and also be able to use the skills in our company as well.”

Responding to the many requests from customers and others is something the group is going to do its best to accomplish.

With such a large number of students involved in Prairie Sky Apparel the company has the ability to operate in many areas a more larger firm does.

For example the company has its own Human Resources (HR) personnel just like a larger real world permanent company.

The skill sets allow the work to be spread to many individuals lightening the load and allow the sales department to concentrate on sales.

“We do have many different jobs. We do have two people Savannah and Rose who are HR, sales persons of course, social media, poster work and order forms and our on-line website. We have many people working on (various tasks) so there is definitely a variety of things to keep everyone busy,” Clark said.

He said since the group is so large they manage to get their work and tasks done very quickly.

“We use that extra time to sell and get the name out there more to family, friends as well as others.”

The project is set to wrap up in mid January with the group hoping sales will propel a large donation to Journey To Hope. Twenty percent of the profit will be donated to the suicide prevention and survivor’s support group.

Waldenberger said the group is hoping to have their first sale completed by the end of November so that orders can be placed and the items available for Christmas.

“We want to do a pop up sale after Christmas,” she said, adding “just before second semester starts (in mid January) we close it all up and get our money and our charity (donation) figured out and that,” she said.

Prairie Sky Apparel has partnered with The Shoppe in not only the logo’s final design but to also provide the uniquely monogramed and silk screen painted apparel. The firm is trying to keep the majority of the work as possible close by in Moose Jaw.

The Shop also assisted in the logo design and helped to put the project all together.

“I think everyone took part in the logo (design) and what the logo is all about. We also took our time, days to come up with the official one, but actually real nice process with the group because we were able to work with our teamwork.”

She said the group chose Journey To Hope as their charity partner because “our school in particular has been affected a lot by mental health and suicide especially last year where we lost a student.”

Journey To Hope was chosen because “we just want to get that awareness out to share to everyone that that needs to be looked at.

The split is 20 percent to the charity with the remaining 80 percent going to the firm’s shareholders to pay them back for each contributing cash to the company.

Opening day sales were brisk as well as there was an opportunity at an assembly “to kind of get our word out. So we got a lot of order sheets out so we shall see if they do it or not. But we got out what we were all about at the function.”

To contact the group to place orders or to find out more here are there social media accounts information.

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