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Here is a link to an article about me that just ran in our local paper – you can read a bit about me & about soul-flower.com.

My Favorite Band: Michael Franti & Spearhead.
My Favorite Soul Flower find: My Zoey Wrap Dress with the green mandalas. Got it over a year ago & still wear it all the time!
My Favorite website (besides Soul-Flower.com of course): http://www.etsy.com

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Here are Soul Flower we do our best to keep the vibe going. We support environmental organizations who are working hard to reverse the harsh effects man has had on the world. We also believe in supporting local community – as an internet shop, it is hard to focus on what is local, as our customers are all over the world. But our day to day lives, at least those of Mike & Peggy, the founders of Soul Flower, find us in Des Moines IA, a great city with many great organizations that help to make our community & world a better place.

In 2009, we continued our efforts with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant two trees for every one that we use in our catalog production. This is an effort we proudly began in 2008 and continued this year. We helped with an amazing project to plant 125,000 total longleaf pine trees in the Manchester State Forest in South Carolina.

Also in 2009, Soul Flower supported the the Des Moines Music Coalition (DMMC) in producing the 8035 Festival in Des Moines, IA. We continue to support Camp Courageous (also located in Iowa) by donating enuf to send 8 kids to the camp in 2009. (Camp Courageous works with disabled children and adults to build self-esteem through an awesome camp experience – please check them out if you get a chance.) We continue our support of the Iowa Food Bank. We began working with a new organization this year as well called After School Arts Program (ASAP). We realize there are many great organizations out there, so please let us know if you have a favorite you would like to see us support.

In addition, we support Carbonfund.org in helping to offset Soul Flower’s carbon footprint; and we continue to expand our green practices as a company.

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Sign, sealed, and almost delivered….finally. After months of hard work we have our Spring Summer ’09 issue out the door. It takes while to get to you. Apparently up to 4 weeks. I am not really sure how that works but if you are impatient like me & just can’t wait to see your soul flower issue, click here to see the virtual version.

I have to send out a HUGE (or as cody would say – gynormous) thanks to our graphic artist Mindy Hoskin-Driscoll of mayday design. She continues to create unique and inspiring artwork for us.

So, let us know your thoughts and watch that mail – it will be your way shortly.

Perhaps some of you have recently been sitting around a summer campfire, wearing your favorite Soulflower shirt and wondering, “What’s going on at Soulflower?” “What sort of place did these great duds that I am wearing come from?” Anyone? Well, even if not, here is your chance for a little behind the scenes tour of our warehouse.

Our “warehouse” is in St Paul Minnesota, and sure, its full of boxes, tape, shelves, and computers just like any warehouse. After that though, it diverges a bit from what you might normally expect. Hardly a minute passes during the day without music playing throughout the place, and we try to keep up a laid back atmosphere. (except during the catalog rush of course)

Here’s a birds eye view of the main room with all sorts of new clothing folded and sorted and ready to be sent to you! If we ever get stuck in here in a disaster, we might not be too happy eating only lip balm, but we could each wear a new shirt every day for years!

This is the spot where all of our merchandise is packed up to send out to the customer. We’ve got every shape and size of new and about-to-be-reused boxes and envelopes. Plus, we have a couple of huge maps so we can check out where all you folks live. If you look close you might even see Jenn through the window answering some of your e-mails!

We’ve got the place decorated a little like a funky apartment. Almost every bit of wall space (that isn’t covered by racks of clothing) is covered by tapestries or concert posters. This wall, however, is reserved for some of our favorite letters and pictures from customers!

By the end of any given day we have a pile of packages ready for pickup, so we send them on their way and get ready for a bunch of new orders tomorrow! Hopefully now you have an idea of what’s going on around here, Thanks for coming on a virtual tour on the world wide web!

Your warehouse bud,
-Chad

p.s. I’ve been here at Soulflower for about 4 great years, working on the site, on our operations, and on getting better goods out to you faster! All the great customers we have make it a pleasure to work here in the Soulflower warehouse.

My favorite thing to do outside of work is to go out and see live music, but I also love building things from wood, fixing up my house, golfing, biking, and playing organized whiffleball. I lived in Madison, WI for several years where I also went to school at UW, before moving here to Minneapolis. I’ve come to like Minnesota a lot, but I’ll always stay the biggest Badger fan in town. Go Bucky!