Wheewwwww- Talk about working quickly and all the pieces just falling into place. I always feel that when that happens (when you truly aren't having to push and push and push to make something work), it is "God thing".
These Flood Relief Tees are a God thing. It was late Thursday evening. We were at home and Brent and I were discussing how we could help the community with the flood. It was/is really bad out there!
We ourselves and our families homes were not harmed by the flood. We were high and dry and just feeling restless. Then, it hit Brent. We had a garage full of brand new shirts that were originally just going to be stored until next years Big Box sale.
For reasons unknown, I did not post any of the long sleeve tees and quite a few of our tanks on the our big online sale. These shirts were just sitting there in our garage. Brand new. Still had tags. In boxes. Hello God!
Brent said-"Lets just donate everything out there to our church". Ok. Sounds good.
And then he said-"After we do that, the rest will just fall into place. We'll know what else we are suppose to do". I agreed. (My husband is always right- yes, I said it Brent. You are are always right!) We kind of discussed maybe trying to do a new shirt to help, but the focus right now was on giving these existing tees away. I then went to go soak in the tub (my evening ritual to relax) and he went out into the garage to make sure boxes were sorted correctly and count them.
While I was laying in the tub, I saw a post a girl had made on Thursday on our Mr P's Facebook page. Her name was Brittney Whitlock.
I then noticed how many people had "Liked" her post. Dang- maybe this is something we really need to do. Design a new shirt??? Thank you for the nudge Brittney. Im laying there in the warm water wondering what the design could be and it just hits me....An Animal in waders standing in front of our state! YES!!! And thinking since this was happening in North Louisiana, it needed to be a deer. Im getting excited about this and start goggling pics of waders and deer!!
So, I get out of the tub and wonder if we raise a bunch of money, who do we give it to??? I always worry about when you give to a group, does the money stay in town?? Well, it seemed like a no brainer to give it to our church-First West. First West has two locations-one in West Monroe and one in Sterlington. This is good bc both Monroe, West Monroe, and Sterlington residents will be helped. The church was already giving out care packages to help people immediatly who only had the shirts on their backs, and sending tons of towels and pillows to area shelters. I sent a message to our preacher, Michael Wood and to Mark Fenn to make sure this was ok with them. I knew also that if we did this and the shirts were a hit, we would need the church's help with packaging orders, etc. I got both of their blessings to proceed on.
So, I climb in bed, got under the covers and start sketching. The drawing just came so easy.
I then sent a text to my friend Jeff Smith who owns Muscle Club Apparel and helps with our graphics at Tommys Tees. I had no idea if he would be at work on Friday and could help me get this laid out quickly. As always, he said no problem.Thank you again Jeff!
The drawing was complete
and ready to scan and send to Jeff on Friday morning. We looked at a couple of different layouts (this one was cute, but didn't want our logo on the front)
and the design was finalized by 10am on Friday.
Meanwhile, Brent took approximately 575 new shirts to the Thrift store.
They were pumped to get them!
Got a bunch of sweet messages that people were excited to receive them.
Our community is truly AMAZING!!! People volunteering everywhere! People cooking meals, people watching other people's kids so they could go help make sand bags. Other area churches supplying food for displaced folks and others were supplying buckets of cleaning supplies for people. I love the Twin Cities. I saw where Cara's Boutique donated all profits from their sales in one day to help.... People just doing what they could with their gifts, time, energy to help others. There were quite a few sore men (and women!) today at church from all the shoveling and lifting. Thank you!!!
So, as of right now (4pm on Sunday), we have sold 1057 adult tees and 154 youth tees. The pre order ends this coming Thursday. Want to order yours?? Go to
www.mrpstees.com. Shirts will be ready to ship out in about 2-3 weeks. Adult tees are $25 and youth are $20. If you want to pick yours up locally, enter promo code FIRSTWEST at checkout. We will email you once they are ready to pick up at the Thrift Store office.
Are you itching to get out of the house and go volunteer?
Or do you need help from all the water?? Check out the First West App.
There is a spot to register to VOLUNTEER and their is also a place to fill in if you need Help too.
Brent and I truly
thank you all for always supporting our little t-shirt company. We are so happy to be able to do something like this to give back to our home town and Parish. Im so thankful to God for giving me the ability to draw and an organized husband with a caring mind to see the big picture.
The original number in my head was 1150. I wanted to sell that many...and we are so close to reaching that, but did I set the bar too low?? How great would it be to reach a total of 1500? or even 2000 tees?? We will keep you guys posted on the tshirt count. :)
Thanks for reading-
Love,
Lissy
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