For most 17-year-olds, figuring out what to wear in the morning is their biggest concern. For senior entrepreneurship major Krista Jordan, it was starting her own clothing company, Flight & Co.

Flight & Co. is a custom clothing and accessory company that allows the customers themselves to create their own line to support the journey of cancer.

“I started Flight & Co. at the age of 17. I had taken a business class through my chamber of commerce that taught me how to start a business. Following this, I began classes at the Kent State … College of Business, focusing in entrepreneurship,” Jordan said.

Jordan and her co-founder, Brittney Zivcsak, have both lost someone close to them to cancer. They said they started their company to give back to those who are affected by cancer by donating 50 percent of all proceeds to the designer. Any leftover stock from their non-custom lines are donated to University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute.

At first, Jordan and Zivcsak said they were determined to make everything by hand, and they started off with hand-crocheted, knit and sewn items.

“After we started growing, my professor Craig Zamary helped me realize that handmade items were not going to be scalable for us,” Jordan said. “This was also around the time we began creating custom lines in honor of current fighters, survivors and angels that were affected by cancer.”

All of Flight & Co.’s clothing items are made in Lakewood, Ohio. The company’s accessories are manufactured in South Carolina.

“We consider our warehouse to be my basement,” Jordan said. “Although, someday this will change. (But) we are happy to save money where we can right now for we are such a small team.”

Once submitted, ideas and designs are created and passed back and forth until the designated design is approved by the customer.

The process to create a custom line can take anywhere from two weeks to over a month.

Anyone can purchase the custom lines during the month they are launched on the site. With every purchase, $1 from every item sold is donated to a local family going through the journey of cancer.

“We created a custom line in honor of … (Kayli) … a friend of mine … who had been battling terminal cancer for 13 years. She had decided to stop treatment just before we launched her line. A month later, Kayli became an angel, and we celebrated her life at a celebration ceremony,” Jordan said. “I would say three-fourths of the room was dressed in Kayli’s shirt that Flight & Co. had launched merely a month earlier. That moment brought tears to my eyes, a smile to my face and warmth to my heart.”

Ever since they first met in the 9th grade, Jordan and Zivcask said they have been endlessly creating.

Jordan has over four years of experience in business and management. Zivcask is a real-time correspondent for Major League Baseball and also manages another company, Brittney Zivcask Photography.

On top of being the CEO of a business, Jordan is also a full-time student at Kent State.

“The hardest thing about starting a business in college was also having to work a full-time job. My business was the least difficult part of being in college. It’s truthfully what kept me going through the hard days and many all nighters,” Jordan said.

Not only has the company been busy with custom lines, but they also collaborated with Beach Babe Body Products, an all natural body product line.

Jordan said Flight & Co. offers creative freedom to its customers to express themselves however they please, and as Flight & Co. continues to grow, so will the community it serves.

Customers interested in constructing their own line can visit http://www.flightnco.com, click on the “contact” tab, and click on “custom lines.” From there, customers enter their name, email, and a line name and description.