{"id":14718,"date":"2016-02-01T21:40:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T21:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?p=14718"},"modified":"2016-02-01T21:40:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T21:40:29","slug":"chisoms-january-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/chisoms-january-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"Chisom&#8217;s January Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On January 23<sup>rd<\/sup>, I got the opportunity to attend the grand re-opening of Zarkpas Purses &amp; Accessories. For those who aren\u2019t familiar, Zarkpas is a store that specializes in women\u2019s handbags and clothing. The store is owned and operated by Tracy Garley, a Liberian native and longtime Detroit resident.<\/p>\n<p>I got to know Tracy after she came to speak to our Challenge Detroit cohort at the Mayor\u2019s office in October. Having sold apparel myself since college, I was intrigued by her business &amp; wanted to find out more. She welcomed me into her circle with open arms and was the first to support &amp; become a vendor for my new venture, BeautifulBLKFriday.com.<\/p>\n<p>The re-opening was a joyous affair, complete with music, wine, West African cuisine &amp; fashionable people. For me, the best part of the event was witnessing the results of determination &amp; persistence. When the landlord of her previous store location raised the rent, Tracy found herself in search of a new home.<\/p>\n<p>After countless months of searching, her prayers were answered, as she toasted to success &amp; prosperity in her stylish new store on Witherell Street (in Detroit\u2019s North End neighborhood). As I continue to work towards my own success, Tracy\u2019s story reminds me that when one door closes, an even better one just might open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On January 23rd, I got the opportunity to attend the grand re-opening of Zarkpas Purses &amp; Accessories. For those who aren\u2019t familiar, Zarkpas is a store that specializes in women\u2019s handbags and clothing. The store is owned and operated by Tracy Garley, a Liberian native and longtime Detroit resident. I got to know Tracy after [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}