Demarion Ware (Football, Missouri Baptist University) grew up in Saint Louis. HelloNation asks student athletes one question about the place that raised them and records the answer on camera. This is Demarion Ware’s, in full.
The question
Name three small business owners in your community who have had a meaningful impact on others or inspired you personally. Who are they, and why do they stand out as a pillar of your community?
The answer, as recorded
Transcript. What follows is a transcript of the video above, in Demarion Ware’s own words. It has not been rewritten, and no part of it was drafted for them.
So the first like business owner, he actually was my coach too. He was, his name was coach Jackson. He worked at the meat fair and he was, he was so used to just being in the community working for the meat fair. Like when you are a small business owner in St. Louis, you are not like only just a business owner. You are a neighborhood contact. You're a neighborhood connect. So when he seen a lot of people, kids and stuff that had school, not going to school, he would tell because he works as an administrator at Riverview too. Also, I want to give a shout out to the next business owner, my uncle, his name is Daniel Nolan and he has a company called Scully Cap and it's a clothing brand that he has right now. He tries to really let people more test out the clothing to, to, you know, express that this ain't got to be a hostile purchase. You can try it on, you can take some pictures in it. You can even share it to the community so they can see, let them feel it. And then the third business owner, I would like to say is my mother. She owns a cookie spot and she tries to get in with the community, help the community. One day, all three of them were thinking about renting out a whole block, like a whole neighborhood and putting up bouncy houses, bringing in candy. Everybody in St. Louis want to do what everybody wants to do. We just are building it. And as the business owner build them, they keep, they keep going. So they all work together and they just stand out because they're so resilient. They always, when the tornado of May happened and it knocked down a lot of small business owners, businesses, they didn't sit there and was like, Oh, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. Of course you got insurance, but they kept going. They invested in the community. They sold their products. They made sure everything was good. So as a businessman in St. Louis, you more of a community connect than a businessman.
Recorded by HelloNation as part of its athlete voices program and published by Hello Newswire, HelloNation’s good news newswire. The words are the speaker’s own.
Reported by Hello Newswire.