Gearing Up Your School Spirit

Practically every person in the U.S. alone owns a drawer-full of them: t-shirts. Although that untouched drawer of high-school sentiment is so hard to part with, they probably don’t even fit you anymore. So why do you keep them? Company apparel of any design can sneak its way into your closets in the form of musty old custom high-school t-shirts that you and your classmates tie-dyed in the 4th grade; however, the company apparel can also be as relevant and meaningful to you as the shirt you won from your color run 5k last summer. Roughly 62% of Americans report that they own ten or more t-shirts in their wardrobe collection. That’s an estimated 1.5 billion shirts! This makes sense however, T-shirts are practical for virtually any occasion — school prep rallies, fund raising events, and sport team spirit events, just to name a few. T-shirts bring great revenue to schools, in fact, 73% of academic fundraising sales are funded by elementary school parents, students, and volunteers. T-shirts can also help to build a greater sense of school spirit. Not only is school spirit linked with greater student achievement, but it is directly tied with designing resources such as custom team sports apparel! It should come as no surpise, then, that a priority for 89% of principals across America is to be an active part of building school spirit. You’d be hard-pressed to find an educational facility that is not currently brainstorming future promotional school ideas and school fundraising events. Custom company apparel can even play a part in designing school uniforms at privately funded insitutions. Clothing can even become an engaging and integral part of the yearly curriculum, helping to raise elementary school spirits with a t-shirt design day in art class.

Giving Your Clothing Meaning

It is clear that t-shirts can foster meaning for people around the world and the sports sector is no exception. Passionate marathon finishers often boast of their medal and t-shirt collection, which can become quite extensive. Some runners even sport custom t-shirts for breweries after tackling a beer run. Others might boast of their recent polar plunges or charity races with shirts which indicate the part they played in fundraising companies and communities, some of which donated a cumulative $4.8 million worth of goods to charity in the past year. Studies show that 64% of Millennials choose to fundraise through walk/run/cycling events, but they do no specify if a motivating factor of their service correlates with the t-shirts given away at the finish line.

Crowdsource Your Style

In a 2007 survey, courtesy of the National Association of Elementary School Principals 76 percent of schools reported to host up to five fundraisers yearly while 20% report to hold five to 10. T-shirts don’t seem to ever go out of style, and, despite their ready availability, remain a popular choice of purchase for those choosing to support fundraisers. Every year, there are roughly 2 billion t-shirts sold worldwide. As a result, on average, each product fundraiser generates a little more than $3,100 for schools and non-profits. This is exceptionally beneficial for the well-being of school and their students as approximately 34 states chose to provide less funding per student for the 2013-2014 academic year consequent of the Great Recession. Despite the financial struggles schools found themselves facing during this difficult time, the 2005-2006 schoolnationwide survey recorded by AFRDS found that nine out of 10 parents purchased products to support their local school fundraiser. Thus, the sale of company apparel not only contributes to stimulating a specific economy, it fosters altruism and social growth as both direct and indirect fundraising interactions give people a sense that they have given back to their community in some fashion.