When I was bored during quarantine in 2020, I decided to start making custom t-shirts for my friends with Illustrator and my Cricut. Sophomore year of college I decided to ramp things up again, and began making new designs and selling them to students at JMU.

 

In the spring of 2022, my campus experienced two suicides in the span of a week and this weighed very heavy on the community. I reached out to the president of JMU's chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness with the idea of raising money for them by making and selling sweatshirts with self-love phrases on them.

 

I had the opportunity to participate in a local farmer's market to sell the apparel, and was able to market using social media. At the end of 3 weeks, I donated 536.7 to NAMI at JMU which was 60% of my profits. This allowed for the club to have the opportunity to host mental health events, buy journals for their members, and support them with whatever financial needs they had.