Direct To Garment Printing For My High School Club

I went to a Catholic high school because the public schools were having budget cuts. When talk about cutting the school year short made me think it would affect my chances of getting into a competitive college, I decided to transfer.

Things were tough at first. I wound up making new friends eventually, but things were different. There was a different social hierarchy and I still hung out with my friends from my old school. I soon became situated with a group of friends, and I moved around as that kid who hangs out with the public school kids, a quasi-rebel.

In my determination to go to a good college, I realized that I would need a number of extracurricular activities, of which I at the time had none. What about a club? I can join the math club. Yeah, I'll join the math club. But I soon realized that anyone could join many clubs - colleges look for individual roles of leadership. Now if I founded a club, then I would have better chances of getting into an elite university.

But what did I like enough to form a club about? What was underrepresented in our school? Where could I carve a niche? Since one of my friends was Jewish and I was Jewish, and we had other friends who admired our Judaism, what if I started a Jewish Club! A haven for Jews and a place to discuss our religion, with Catholics invited.

Now to make this popular, I would need something to spread the word. But what… T-shirts. All the other cool clubs had them. My Jewish Club would too. So I looked into a contract screen printing to find a direct-to-garment print shop. I chose a nice light blue, an image of a mean looking ram (our school mascot) and some funky copy for the back of it. Within a few days I had the t-shirts in hand.

People began to buy them and come to my club! It was a success. I had direct to garment printing on hand so that when we ran out, I ordered another batch. Soon I graduated and I appointed my little brother president. He wasn't quite as excited, unfortunately. He stopped holding meetings the following year and by the time he graduated the club had practically dissolved. But on cold nights I still wear my Central Catholic Jewish Club T-Shirt and the dream lives on.