Making masks saves local business

Making masks saves local business, answers community call for help

By David Mullen

Gannett

For Ames Main Street’s Threadit owner Janae Smith, March 23 was a tough day — the day she decided to close the doors to her business to encourage her customers to stay home. Although business had slowed down a bit, she said, customers were still coming to the store daily, and Smith felt guilty about it.

“Customers were still coming in my shop and I felt that I was encouraging people to come out and run their normal errands,” Smith said. “I didn’t want to feel responsible for the spread of (COVID-19), and I thought of it as my social responsibility.”

After two weeks of closure, however, the Iowa State University graduate began to feel the hardship. At that point, she wasn’t sure how much longer the business, which does tailoring, could last.Then, after seeing an increasing number of medical facilities like Mary Greeley and McFarland Clinic ask for personal protective equipment, she thought she could use her skills to save her business. “I knew there would be a great demand (for masks) in the area, and the best way to get masks to your local community is by sourcing them locally,” Smith said. “So yes, I wanted to answer the call for help, but it was also a strategic business move to save my business.” Since April 3, Smith and six of her associates have produced more than 350 masks to sell and have donated nearly 100 to Mary Greeley Medical Center and Youth and Shelter Services [YSS].

“We couldn’t operate the way we currently are at the hospital if we didn’t have these donations,” said Vicki Newell, manager of volunteer and older adult services at Mary Greeley Medical Center. “We can’t even begin (to say) how grateful we are.”

Many others throughout the Ames and Story County communities have also answered the call for personal protective equiptment, including an Ames Police dispatcher, local 4-H groups and a grandmother in Kelley. “(Helping others) is just a way of life, and you don’t really think of it like that, but if you can (help in any way) you should,” said Angie Van Westen, a dispatcher for the Ames Police Department. “I have the ability (to sew) so I do that and I’ll keep doing that if it means I’m helping others.” Although these are unprecedented times and many fear the potential impact COVID-19 could have on the economy, their loved ones and their daily lives, Ames and Story County residents have always shown an ability to take action when needed in the past.

At the beginning of 1942, shortly after President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war on the Axis alliance in World War II, the Collegiate Manufacturing Co. in Ames decided to change ira production of caps and gowns for Iowa State students to raincoats and ponchos for the U.S.

JANAE SMITH POSES OUTSIDE OF THREADIT IN DOWNTOWN AMES, WHERE SHE HAS SWITCHED HER A TAILOR BUSINESS TO CREATING

MASKS DURING THIS PANDEMIC. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Army Quartermaster Corps, said Alex Fejfar, exhibits manager at the Ames Historical Museum. Collegiate Manufacturing “was one of the first companies to get big nationally for producing products for colleges in the Midwest and nationally, but when World War II hit, they stopped production of graduation caps and gowns and starting using their large work force to support the cause,” Fejfar said.

At the time, the company had two buildings on the sites the Octagon Art Center and McClanahan Studio now occupy in the 200 block of Fifth Street. It received the Army Navy “E” award for its efforts, an honor given to only 3% of companies that assisted with wartime production, Fejfar said.

Harley Wilhelm, of Ames, who was in charge of production at the Ames Laboratory at the time and played an essential part in the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bombs, also received the prestigious honor, Fejfar said.

So for businesses in Ames and residents of Story County to be answering a call at times of need is no surprise to Fejfar.

“There’s no problem too small for Ames and the graduates of Ames to solve, and people are just proving that again today,” Fejfar said. YSS CEO Andrew Allen said they’re heroes in the war on COVID-19.

“Any member of a business [or resident] who takes the time to help the front lines … are heroes,” Allen said.

Although the transition from hemming pants or patching a hole in a coat hasn’t been completely smooth, Smith said she’s just happy to be able to help others, while consistently receiving support from local residents.

“The local support has been overwhelming and I’m so grateful for the community we have here,” Smith said. Orders for masks can be placed at www.threaditames.com. Masks can be picked up in person or delivered, Smith said. Ariana Engelman, an employee at Threadit, said that although times are bleak, the power of community and coming together outshines everything.

“[Making these masks] is definitely a unique opportunity for all of us, but it’s just really awesome how we can all jump on board and start helping each other,” Engelman said. “As sucky as this crisis is, I think this crisis has really brought a lot of people together.”

NITE OWL PRINT AND COPY, AT 526 MAIN ST., NO. 101, IN AMES.

PHOTO BY KYLEE MULLEN/GANNETT

STEVE AND SHERRY ERB ARE RETIRING AFTER MORE THAN 38 YEARS OF OWNING AND OPERATING NITE OWL PRINT AND COPY IN AMES. PHOTO BY KYLEE MULLEN/GANNETT

Nite Owl Print and Copy owners look toward next chapter

By Kylee Mullen

Gannett

Ames’ Main Street’s Nite Owl Print and Copy has come a long way over the past 38 years. And if you ask its owners, Steve and Sherry Erb, there is still a long road ahead for the business, which has offered a range of printing services in the community since the early 1980s.

However, the couple said, it will be continuing without them.

“We decided it was time to retire because (Steve) is 70 and I am almost 70. It was our goal to work until we were 70,” said Sherry Erb. She said she and her husband have sold the business to a couple who recently moved to the area to be closer to family.

“We’re leaving it in good hands, and they’re really excited,” she said.

That doesn’t make letting go any easier, the Erbs said — especially since the history behind the business spans three generations. Making history on Hayward Avenue

In some ways, Sherry Erb said, it all started when her grandfather, Joe Wattoff, moved to the Ames area from Sweden to help build the Memorial Union at Iowa State University, which was completed in 1928. He later built his own full-service gas station in Campustown, and raised his three sons while running it.

Then, during the Great Depression, he lost the property to the bank, but wasn’t willing to give up. He built another building, identical to the first, on Hayward Avenue, and reopened his gas station there. His three sons — Vern, Don and Murl, who invested in the business after returning from military service in World War II — eventually changed the business to sell cars instead of gas, but outgrew the building Sherry’s grandfather built.

When they moved to a larger location, Sherry’s father, Don, bought the Hayward Avenue building and turned it into an office and retail space, “with a whole bunch of different businesses in it, and Nite Owl was in the front of that building,” she said.

Nite Owl, at the time, was owned by two men in the community, but neither had time to operate the business. They were looking to sell after just a few years, and that is when Sherry and Steve Erb decided to make the business their own. Nite Owl’s beginning

The Erbs, who met in third grade at United Community School and attended Iowa State University together, were working as teachers in Winterset in 1981, but felt it was time for a change. According to Sherry Erb, they began scanning the Des Moines Register for job postings and businesses for sale.

They found Nite Owl, and “saw it was in dad’s old building,” and bought it on Feb. 1, 1982, in what Steve Erb called the “pre-internet

days.” Everything about the business, the Erbs said, was different from what it is today.

“We started out with a huge blueprint machine that was 6 feet long and 6 feet wide, and a line of ISU students out the door wanting their projects to be blueprinted,” Sherry Erb said. However, it was not smooth sailing. Steve, who taught industrial arts in Winterset, had to stay and finish out the school year while Sherry, with two babies in tow, moved in with her parents in Ames and started learning the ropes. “It was scarier than scary, it really was,” Sherry Erb said. “We had sunk all of our savings into buying it, and we were trying to support children. We didn’t even have a house yet. … I was leaving my kids every day, which was really hard for me, and trying to learn all of these machines when I am not mechanical.”

“It was really scary, and I was so worried there wasn’t enough money coming in to really make a go of it.” It didn’t help, she said, that at one point there were four copy centers all operating on the same block between Haywood Avenue and Welch Avenue. The competition was tough, but Nite Owl persevered.

Constant evolution

When the couple first bought the business, they intended to focus on making plastic signs while having copy services be “just a part of it,” but they quickly realized “there was absolutely no money to be made in plastic signing, and no repeat business.”

“Immediately, we had to go a different direction,” Sherry Erb said.

They instead built the business by copying and printing for students and churches, who would “come in every Friday to get their church bulletin printed,” she said. And, for the first three years or so, Steve Erb said, typing resumes on a typewriter was “our bread and butter.”

However, as technology continued to advance, so did the business.

For example, when the couple bought a few small Macintosh computers, “it was a new era,” said Sherry Erb, who would use the computers to type resumes from home while watching their kids and send them to the shop through the telephone line.

Then, as more people got access to computers and printers in their homes, the couple “went more commercial,” printing and copying for businesses, organizations and clubs.

According to Sherry Erb, being able to adapt and change with the times played a big role in bringing them where they are today.

“Steve has been really good at keying in on how to make money in order to survive,” Sherry Erb said. “Surviving in a small business for 38 years is really difficult. … Changing the business, deciding where you can actually make money and adapting the business constantly so that it was fluid, was key. Otherwise the business would have died.”

Moving downtown

About four years ago, the Erbs were faced with another change, bigger than either of them had ever imagined. “We got evicted because they were tearing down Grandpa’s building to put up a high-rise apartment building,” Sherry Erb said. “They forced me out, kicking and screaming and crying, and we had a six-week notice at Christmastime.”

With little time to find and move into a new location, the couple were hard-pressed. At the same time, both of Sherry’s parents were dying, and Steve’s mother died unexpectedly.

“It was just brutal, especially at our age, and it was the hardest time that we’ve ever been through,” Sherry Erb said. Luckily, they found a space at the old Ames depot, and Steve Erb began to work all day at the old shop, and all night and weekends building shelves at the new one, so they could move before the electricity would be turned off. “Our whole family and our whole church helped us one Saturday to move everything in one day so we could be open again on Monday morning,” Sherry Erb said. “But we do like the new location. It’s a gorgeous space, we love the old depot, and we have more than twice as much space as we did then.”

Since then, the couple said, business has been great, and working with one another has been even better. Sherry Erb said they make it work by “always making time for jokes,” shooting rubber bands at each other or sneakily sticking packing tape on one another’s backs, and “whenever our favorite song comes on the radio, we stop whatever we are doing and we dance.”

She hopes the new owners will find a similar joy when they officially begin running the business on their own.

New beginnings

Despite COVID-19 causing disruption for businesses all over the country, Sherry Erb said Nite Owl is still “at its peak,” and she looks forward to seeing where the new owners, Deb and Craig Tapp, take it. “It does feel slightly different now that we are keeping our front doors locked and not letting walk-in traffic come in, but we’re still getting a ton of work over the computer,” Sherry Erb said. “We’re here every day, working as fast as we can, and shipping it out, but we’re not seeing faces so it feels completely different.

“It’s a really good time for the new owners to take over.”

The Tapps started their first official day at Nite Owl on Thursday, and are excited to be the business’s new owners.

Deb, who arrived at the shop early Thursday to begin learning from the Erbs, said, “There’s a lot to learn from their 38 years, so I hope I can learn everything they teach me.” She also looks forward to meeting the customers and facing new challenges, saying, “We’re excited for this next chapter.” Leaving will be hard for the Erbs — especially for Sherry, who said, “I’ve been doing a lot of crying. We have 38 years of relationships with people who we will probably never see again. I just cry coming into work every morning.” But the Erbs say they are looking forward to whatever is in store next, including babysitting their five grandchildren and traveling together. And, at the end of the day, they said, they are walking away proud of what they’ve built.

“It’s been interesting. It’s been fun. It’s been painful. It’s been hard, hard work,” Sherry Erb said.

A MECHANICAL PRINTER STEVE AND SHERRY ERB BOUGHT IN 1986 IS STILL USED TODAY FOR CERTAIN PROJECTS, INCLUDING PRINTING ON MICROWAVABLE

POPCORN BAGS. PHOTO BY KYLEE MULLEN/ GANNETT