GREAT FALLS — Roe River Clothing is a family business in Great Falls owned by mother and daughter Judy and Jessi Oeleis.
The clothing company offers stylish, trendy clothing using social media to showcase their items to customers.
Jessi wanted to come up with ways they could help the Great Falls community as many continue to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jessi says she felt blessed they already had an online platform to be able to continue operating while the pandemic harshly affected some businesses in the community.
They started by putting gift certificates and coupons for different Great Falls businesses in their shipments to their customers in hopes that they would in turn support those local businesses.
But Jessi wanted to do more, so they came up with Great Falls Strong; the t-shirts feature logos for businesses in Great Falls and Roe River is giving half of all profits back to the businesses.
Lucas Cyr, part owner of the Double Barrel Coffee House Café said a friend had reached out to him with the idea to make shirts to help their business during the coronavirus pandemic, but knew they needed help.
“Of course, we don’t do clothing here at the Double Barrel, so I instantly thought of Jessi and her mom. Her being the person she is she just wanted to help and jumped right in and said yeah, we’ll do this,” he said.
“And we just kind of brainstormed and put it together and came up with Great Falls Strong idea and it’s all just really come together, and we’ve had a ton of support.”
Double Barrel was the first to sign on, and Jessi reached out to a few other businesses and the campaign took off from there. Now more than 40 businesses and organizations have signed on and they are in the process of adding more each day.
Cyr also said some of the businesses involved have opted to donate the proceed they received to organizations around town.
If you are part of a business who would like to join the campaign, please email Jessi.roeriverclothing@gmail.com. They have put a deadline for organizations to sign on before Friday, May 8. The shirts will be available for purchase through May 15. Click here to visit the Roe River website.
The response from the community was almost overwhelming, to the point where they were backed up on orders. The shirts take about two weeks to ship from the purchase.
The shirts available currently are listed below:
- Double Barrel Coffee House Cafe
- Kneat Freaks
- Schulte's 38th Street Store and Coffee House
- 5th and Wine
- Pretty Active LLC
- Borries Supper Club
- Falls Woodwork
- The High Plains Shop
- Everyday IGA
- Mrs Wrights Pastys
- Heidelberg Lounge
- Triangle Photography by Jenifer Lynn
- Wassmann Enterprises
- Precision Woodworks Inc.
- 3-D International
- Pit Stop Tavern
- The Gittin' Store Uniforms & More
- Tracy's Family Diner
- Aquasource Drilling
- Black Eagle Brewery
- True Brew Espresso
- ilovethislife.org
- Sip 'n Dip Great Falls
- Jenny Craig
- Great Falls Central Catholic High School Mustangs
- The Hat Rack Styling Salon
- Emily Lollar Photography, LLC
- Clark and Lewie's
- The Block Bar & Grill
- Enbär
- City Bar
- Rise Athletics