Why Viral #RushTok Brand Gives Back: ‘A Living Testimony’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Christian clothing brand Altar’d State is getting a lot of love from TikTok’s #BamaRush, the viral trend where University of Alabama sorority prospects jump on “RushTok” to share their outfits of the day (#OOTD).
@_altardstate You’ve been so good to us🫶🥹✨ #bamarush #rushtok #altardstate
@makeupartistatlaw
Besides providing attractive clothing, there are a few other reasons why young women love the brand.
When Altar’d State’s founder, chairman and CEO Aaron Walters started his career in retail, he made a lot of money. But he felt empty. So he started a company that would allow him to give back at “unheard of” levels.
“In April 2009 when the economy had completely crashed, it was the worst economy since the 1930s,” Walters explained on the “Jesus Calling” podcast. “I was working out in California, making really good money. And [my next steps] meant going in and resigning and saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to start this company.’ It was selling all of my stock, selling any car I could — anything that we had was sold to get what money we could to fund the company.”
“I think God was just always tugging on my heart, [saying], ‘What are you going to do with your talents?” Walters said. “And so one of the things I love about Altar’d State is I’m able to do what I’m passionate about and what I really love, but also live out my faith and give back to my community.”
Walters says many doubted him, but he always trusted God. He’s kept Jeremiah 29:11 near to his heart.
The verse says, ”For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”
“I truly believe that with all my heart. I really do. I’ve lived it. I am a living testimony of if you follow God’s plan, He will take care of you,” Walters said.
Chief brand officer Mary Beth Fox says Altar’d State isn’t your typical company.
“At Altar’d State, we give back first. Other people have budget meetings and all they talk about is the bottom line, but we actually have key performance indicators that we have to give back at the same rate or better than we grow our sales,” she said. “So as a company, our mission was the heart of who we are. And I don’t think it matters whether we sell books, music, donuts, or apparel and gifts as long as our mission is to give back. God’s on our side, and we’ve done really well with that, just staying close to our mission of who we are.”
Walters said, “I make giving back the number-one priority. There have been years, and I don’t normally share this publicly, but as an organization we give anywhere from 17- to 24- to 25- percent of our profits away, which is completely and utterly unheard of.”
He looks at the money like it’s God’s money. He believes that because God is the one who provided it, they ought to give back.
Fox said, “I mean our mission of giving back, visiting schools that we built in Peru and seeing the difference we’re making in the lives there. Or through our Mission Monday organizations — every store gets to pick who they’re going to support locally. And it’s not just about giving a check. It’s about creating a relationship and a bond with someone of your local community. And if you do that, then how could you go wrong?”
“The way Peru really happened is God had it all figured out. It was myself and my translator, and I was talking to a young lady in the sixth grade. And as a typical American, because we take a lot for granted — I’m in an area where they have no running water, no place to use the restroom, all these things that we just take for granted from day to day — and I asked her, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And she literally just started crying,” he recalled.
The girl explained that she had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up because her town couldn’t afford to finish building its high school.
Walters said, “Without even thinking, I was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. We’ll build that high school.’”
Later, his translator started to cry and so did he.
“Do you realize what you just said?” she asked him.
“I mean, really, the weight just hit me like, ‘Oh my goodness,’” he said. “I’m in this third-world country, and I just committed to build a school. I’ve never built a school in my life.’”
“’I have no idea what I’m going to do. And oh, by the way, we’re trying to run the company at the same time. How is this going to happen?” he said.
He figured it out, and now that young girl who didn’t know what she wanted to be is about to graduate high school.
“We’ll have over 19 schools finished in the next three to four years. Very, very exciting. We have five up and finished now and 14 more that are being worked on,” Walters said.
“And it’s really through a partnership, again, where God has provided that. It’s not necessarily me having to figure all this out,” he said.
Through Altar’d States’ Mission Mondays, they work with non-profits to help varied demographics in need.
The company has helped assist “over 4,000 nonprofits that provide food, clothing, resources, education, and love to children in need” locally and across the globe.
One of the non-profits they work with is Compassion That Compels, which provides support for women who fight cancer.
“Through the years, Altar’d State has selected Compassion That Compels [to partner with],” said Kristianne Stewart, Compassion That Compels’ founder and CEO. “And because of their mission Monday program, we’ve reached over 3,200 women battling cancer through their stores and provided Compassion Bags to them. Not only that we’ve encouraged these women through fashion shows, meet and greets. We can’t wait to see the women that will be touched by this season’s Mission Monday.”
Fox said, “Some of the best stories that we hear are we actually keep Compassion That Compels bags in all of our stores. And you would not believe the number of times a month a lady comes into our store and just spills it and tells us that she’s going through this tough time.”
Customers walk in to find clothes, but they leave with support and community.
Stewart said, “Giving back is what [the company does]. It’s who they are. And they stress it so much that their employees have a dedicated day [when] they go through training. It is the reason why their employees are so committed.”
Fox said, “We have prayer books in every one of our fitting rooms, and people write their deepest, darkest secrets things, things they really want guidance on and help with. As an organization, we share that. We share the prayer requests throughout our team.”
“And we even have decided that they’re so inspirational to us that we make wallpaper for our fitting rooms out of the prayers from some of the books,” she continued.
Ultimately, Altar’d State helps uplift its customers through its products, prayer books, music, and the compassion of its employees.
“We try to satisfy our guests in everything that we do and we stay true to our passion, which is giving back,” Fox said. “So instead of telling people we’re Christians, we just show them that we’re Christians.”
Movieguide® reported on another faith-founded company, Hobby Lobby:
[Founder and CEO David green] recalled that he and his wife started the company with a $600 loan to make tiny frames in their basement in 1970. By 1972, they opened their first store, a 600-square-foot building that would kick start their empire of nearly 1,000 stores across the country….
“The toughest lessons we’ve learned is the fact that we need to know that this is God’s business,” he said. “We had to learn that. When we gave it to him we would see him bless this business. I don’t know that we always knew that. We said it, most Christians say that, but we really had to learn that for real.”
