Meet the women behind the Sioux Falls flag flying in front of your house

If you have a Sioux Falls flag flying over your house, chances are it came from For Social Goods.

Owners Kelsie Thomas and Kellen Boice bonded over the Sioux Falls flag before it was ever officially adopted. Four years later, they’re the main wholesalers behind the flag flying over so many homes and businesses in town.

The two women met during the first women’s march in downtown Sioux Falls in January 2017.

At the time, Boice was working as the executive director of the Sioux Falls Design Center, which was one of the organizations behind a 2014 design competition to find a Sioux Falls flag.

The now widely recognizable winning design, a jagged line stair stepping up between blue and red landscapes to represent the falls with a yellow sun in the top left corner, was done by Max Rabkin.

Three years later, among the thousands of people participating in one of the largest marches in city history, Boice spotted a woman holding that winning flag.

It was Thomas.

“I thought, I have to meet this person,” Boice said. “How did they get that flag?”

The two women connected instantly, and they stayed in touch as part of the effort to get the flag formally adopted by the Sioux Falls City Council.

“I think Kellen and I were both drawn to this grassroots community project and the adoption of this visual representation of our community,” Thomas said.

When that happened in the summer of 2018, they were the ones who helped get the first flags made.

“Kelsie and I both threw in $500, and another business threw in $500, and we bought the first set of real flags from a local business in Minnesota,” Boice said.

From there, they decided to start For Social Goods, an e-commerce site where people could purchase flags of their own.

After awhile, and with a couple of kids born in between, they realized wholesale was a better fit for their busy lives. Their main customer is Zandbroz Variety, which sells flags, pins and patches from For Social Goods.

“It’s just been naturally evolving,” Boice said. “We haven’t been pushing it.”

The name comes from their passion for giving back to the community. The company donates 10 percent of profits to a local nonprofit each year. For the first two years, they gave to the St. Francis House. Last year, they gave to the Transformation Project, and this year, they plan to donate to Sioux Falls Pride.

In keeping with the pride theme, For Social Goods also had a Sioux Falls pride flag designed. It’s a rainbow flag with the ascending jagged line and sun designs from the city flag overlaid. They expect it will be a popular item this year.

Boice and Thomas don’t know exactly what the future holds for For Social Goods, though they expect they’ll continue to evolve the product line. They also know that whatever happens, their goal of keeping more money in the community will remain the ultimate goal.

“I love the idea that our business got started from this (flag),” Boice said. “And there’s just a bigger picture out there than just retail.”