Our women designers series is an on-going project to highlight innovative designers across the world that incorporate YKK® products into their unique creations. Meet Angela Degnan, the owner of Zip With Us®, a nonprofit that donates custom ZipShirts™ Drew’s Cruisers™ and other adapted medical garments across the US and beyond to kids with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses, allowing them to keep their clothes on during treatments, adding comfort and dignity and reducing fear and anxiety.
Tell us about your background: where you grew up, your hobbies, where you went to school, etc.
I was born and raised by the best parents, Deb and Tony, in Somerset County, PA. Growing up, you could usually find me outside playing GI Joe or riding bikes with my best friend and big brother, Mike. By middle and high school, I had transferred much of my energy to sports and spent my time snowboarding, swimming, playing basketball, and running track and cross country. I attended Robert Morris University, where I earned a BS in mass communications. During my time there, I ran division 1 cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. Shortly after graduation, I moved to Florida and worked for a start-up real estate development company doing marketing, operations, and asset management. It was an exciting and fast paced environment that enabled me to regularly grow outside my designated role, to travel a bunch, and to work with some of the best people I have ever met. From there, I went on to do consulting in New York, got married and started a family, my pride and joy. A whole bunch of moves and three kids later, we moved back to Pennsylvania to put down some roots. Within a couple weeks of our return, our 2-year-old son, Thatcher, was diagnosed with leukemia while we were in Massachusetts visiting family.
What inspired you to start Zip With Us® and what are the values the brand stands for?
After our son’s diagnosis, we had a strong calling to help others in a similar situation. Thatcher was gifted a handmade ZipShirt™ right after he had his port surgery. We had no idea what the shirt meant, or how useful it would be. However, the moment we got home and the realities of his and our new lives started to settle in, it immediately became the cornerstone of his treatment. He had 1,500 days of chemotherapy, blood products, countless ER visits at all hours of the day and night, ivig transfusions, +/-40 procedures including biopsies and spinal taps. Every single one of these occasions meant that Thatch was in his ZipShirt™. It kept him warm, feeling safe, less afraid, calm, and dignified. And every single time he had it on, the staff, including the doctors, nurses, and other parents would ask where he got it and how they could get one. We did a lot of research and at the time they were not as common as they are now. You could buy them online for $45-$60. They were plain and expensive for a child who is receiving life-saving medications through their medical access device to stay alive. We made the decision to start a nonprofit that would offer one free ZipShirt™ to every kid with cancer in the US, allowing them to both choose what color/design they want and to tell us where their medical access points are so that we could retrofit it just for them. That is exactly what we did.
In 2018 we became an official nonprofit, Zip With Us®, and to date have donated over 20,000 ZipShirts™ and other adapted medical garments to kids who have cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. Our core company values are passion, commitment, quality, respect, innovation, compassion, and inclusion. As cancer parents, we experienced so much kindness from other organizations out there who are paying it forward and helping patients and families in these times of need. We realized the outstanding impact and importance of all these services and also the need for sick kids to have the opportunity to keep being kids. We identified a space where we were able make a difference by offering free, custom adapted medical garments to each patient so they could have one less fear, worry, keep their clothes on for treatment, stay warm and be themselves while in the hospital. No matter who they are, or what their socioeconomic status is, we get our product to them.
Can you provide more detail about the process of customizing ZipShirts™ and Drew’s Cruisers™ for children with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses?
Absolutely. We strive to make the process as simple as possible for the parent/loved one/patient/hospital to place their orders. Any child with cancer or other life-threatening illness can place an order through our website, www.zipwithus.org, for free. The order form on our homepage collects the information we need about each patient (shirt size, choice of color and design as well as location of medical access points including ports, central lines, gtubes, the need for multiple access openings, pockets, etc.). Our head of production, Diana, is like the 8th wonder of the world. She receives every single order, “shops” to see if we have the order in stock in our HQ and if not, she orders the design and color as close to as exact as she possibly can find. Once we have the new shirt, if necessary, Di talks with the patient or caregiver to make sure she places everything so that it works perfectly for the patient. She then takes a glance at of our tens of thousands of amazingly colorful donated YKK® zippers and picks the perfect hue and size for the garment, places it exactly where it should be sewn and then transfers the order to one of our several talented seamstresses.
Once the zippers, pockets or other specialized adaptations are complete, the seamstress drops the orders off for Di to finish processing. She does quality control one final time, double checks the order and ships off to the patient usually within the same week the order was placed. Because Drew’s Cruisers™ is our newest program (started by Drew’s mother, Mandy Slocum, and brought into the Zip With Us® family in 2023), we are only offering direct hospital service for the first and possibly second quarters of 2024. We’re currently piloting the program in 4 top pediatric hospitals in the US and are looking to expand into 200 hospitals by the end of 2025. Hospitals can sign up with interest for Drew’s Cruisers™ direct service through our website now and we’ll be onboarding them as fast as we can with the same, free replenishment model we’ve always had. Our company has had more than 60% annual growth over the last few years, which means between individual and hospital orders, we have weeks with hundreds and hundreds of custom medical garments going out all over the US. So far, 2024 is already projected to be far beyond those figures.
What are some current challenges or obstacles you face in carrying out your mission and how can the community support your efforts?
Our biggest challenge is not having enough time to fundraise while experiencing rapid growth with a labor-intensive operation and simultaneously needing to expand our team. We’re getting much better at staying on track and focusing on one thing at a time (when did that become so hard?) which has been helpful as we get used to operating in our new space. We have the best team. I mentioned Di, whom we met as soon as we moved back to Pennsylvania. She has been a special part of our family since Thatcher’s diagnosis on nearly every level and she is the best friend anyone could ever dream of. Jane is our head seamstress. She’s so meticulous with her sewing; her products all look like they could be sold at Saks. Perhaps it’s the physician in her, but she nails all the specific anatomical placement of gtubes, and other specialty accommodations with astonishing ease. Some of our other extraordinary seamstresses, Amy, Debbie, Katie, and Sally are all showing up and sharing their beautiful talents regularly with these kids. Mandy came on board in 2023 and it has been an amazing whirlwind having two locations, one in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina. In that time, ZWU moved into a new office space, and we officially launched Drew’s Cruisers™ under the Zip With Us® umbrella. It’s been a tremendous undertaking, but we are all so energized and excited in anticipation to get these medically adapted onesies stocked into as many pediatric hospitals as we can. Their impact is priceless to the babies, their loved ones, and to the staff providing them care. Not only is Mandy a wildly amazing nurse, but she’s also raising a young, active family at home with her loving husband and brings her energy, positivity, and thoughtful direction to the table each day. All these women are so special to me and to one another. Our small and mighty team is working daily to face our challenges head on. We harness the generosity of the communities we serve each day through fundraisers or T-shirt/onesie drives. You can find all the information on our website under “how to help”. Like all nonprofits, we thrive on donations, word of mouth, grants, and fundraising efforts. We are honored and grateful to have all your support!
What are some of your favorite YKK® products and why do you choose YKK® products:
EASY. We have been sewing with zippers since 2017. We’ve tried every brand out there when we first started and after making the switch, we’ll never use another zipper brand. The quality and reliability of the YKK® brand are paramount to anything else on the market. These kids wear their adapted Zip With Us® garments over and over for months and years. They need to function for the duration, and we’d never think of sacrificing quality. Zippers are the foundation our ZipShirts™. With YKK® we don’t have to think about anything except what color looks the best and what size works the best. #3 nylon coil in every color please! Our office is a ROYGBIV of zippers and it makes us so happy. Eat your heart out LEGO!
What are your future goals and initiatives for Zip With Us®?
We would like to onboard 10 additional hospitals with our ZipShirts™ to get to that 100 mark which will likely happen by Q3 of 2024. We are currently working on a manufacturing plan for Drew’s Cruisers™ that will offer support to 200 hospitals. We’re planning a marquee event that will likely happen in 2025… 2024 if we hustle! Our dream is to have two fully operational offices (one in Pennsylvania and one in North Carolina) by the end of 2024. We’ll be tweaking and growing our jewelry fundraising efforts and are working on adding a line of small batch manufactured bags made from recycled materials we’re currently sourcing. We’ll be expanding our services into every hospital floor as well to offer adapted medical garments for kids with cardiology, neurology, and other adaptive needs. We’re thrilled at the endless ways in which we can expand to help more kids each year and we’ll have some fun news coming up soon so definitely follow along with us online in the coming months!
What are 3 qualities every female entrepreneur needs to have?
- Self-confidence: Having the ability to know that even if you don’t know (which will be every single day) that you’ll figure it out or find someone else who can. You can and will do this!
- Self-worth: Doing something on your own is hard. It requires endless personal sacrifice. While it’s important to listen to others’ advice, suggestions, concerns, and ideas, it’s essential that you know what you are worth and that you are worth going after exactly what you want, not what others think you should be doing. Even if an opportunity arises, it’s easy to be distracted by its allure, but knowing your worth and the worth of what you’re building is a must. There will always be another opportunity ahead and you’ll know when it’s the right fit.
- Adaptability: Every day is way different than what I originally plan and it’s bananas. I have four kids so every time we make a plan, we just assume it will be wildly different by the time that date rolls around. I have a really easy-going mom who has been very adaptable throughout my life which has been helpful to me in times of frustration or pivot. This is a life skill and essential to move forward with starting a business.
- Humility, passion and persistence are my bonus 4, 5 & 6. Stay with it! It will pay off! and it takes time and a lot of heart.
