For months now the demand has been nonstop. They brought in three new seamstresses in May and beyond that contracted out with sewers working from home. That’s in addition to beefing up the warehouse staff to handle the demands on shipping and inventory.
If flag-buying is a reliable barometer, America’s enthusiasm to throw a big 250th birthday party for itself this year is off the charts.
“It’s chaos, we’ve got stuff coming in and stuff flying out. It’s just a massive surge of people wanting to get something for America250,” says Jacob Swenson, COO of Colonial Flag, the Sandy business adjacent to the I-15 freeway that his father Paul started 47 years ago.
“We’ve been doing everything in our power to sew more flags. We’re sewing stripes, we’re sewing stars, we’re printing the cantons (the blue part in the corner with the stars). We’re barely keeping up.”
At the start of the year, Jacob continues, “We started loading up based on what we thought the demand was going to be. We made a bunch of extras. We thought we might have tons left over — and then the flags were all gone in May. And we’re like, ‘Oh no!’”
So they added the extra people and started sewing some more.
“This is by far the biggest year we’ve ever had — ever,” says Jacob. “We’ll do at least double what we do in normal years. The last time it was this crazy was Sept. 11. That year, people lined up down the frontage road for more than a mile to get a flag. But this is a year-long celebration. It’s not going to end with the Fourth of July.”
Colonial doesn’t just sell locally. Its reach is nationwide. Among its many customers is the United States of America. The 20-foot-by-38-foot Freedom250 flag that’s flying this weekend above the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., is one of theirs. So is the massive 150-foot-by-300-foot flag they sent off to the Indianapolis Colts — a football field-sized flag for a football franchise. (A flag that size costs in the neighborhood of $65,000, and that’s before hardware and accessories.)
Any number of Major League Baseball and National Football League teams, along with numerous NASCAR racetracks and other sports organizations, are flying Colonial Flags this year. Last month, ESPN sent a team to film Colonial’s workers making the flags. The footage will be part of the 24-hour-long ABC/ESPN America250 television broadcast scheduled to begin the evening of July 3 and run until the evening of July 4.
“They were here filming for 12 hours, focusing on our very talented sewers,” says Jacob. “They’re going to start ESPN’s two-hour chunk of the Fourth of July special with about a two-minute video of us assembling one of the giant flags that’s going to the NFL.”
For all the high-profile, big-name, big-flag customers, the beating heart of Colonial’s business — the reason behind all the chaotic demand — consists of everyday Americans looking for an everyday flag to wave.
In the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, it is these unabashed fans of America who have beaten a steady path to Colonial’s doors. People like Emilio Jaime Vasquez Jr. and his wife Maria, whom I caught up with after the couple purchased two new flagpoles and one each of an America250 flag and a traditional stars and stripes.
“Our flags were getting tainted and turning gray,” explained Emilio, a retired restaurant executive who owns a lawn care business. “They needed to be refreshed.”
They’ll raise their new flags at their West Valley home on the Fourth of July — just like they do every other day of the year.
Emilio also habitually wears an American flag scarf around his neck, a neckerchief that not only comes in handy keeping the dust down when he’s doing lawn care, but speaks volumes about how he feels about his country.
“Ever since I was a little boy, we’ve lived the American dream,” says Emilio, a third-generation Mexican American. “I’ve traveled the world, I’ve seen the other side of the coin, I know what we have in America. We’re not perfect. There’s good and there’s bad, but this is our country and we should all do our best to make it a good place to live. I say embrace our country. We are so frickin’ lucky to be here. That’s why I fly the flag.”
