Two Ball State University alumni are giving students the opportunity to raise money for themselves and their favorite charity with the recently launched Internet apparel company Bring The Hope.
Jeremy Chastain and Mike Marker, 1991 graduates and the founders of the company, said they were having a contest for Ball State students to make a T-shirt concept that could be distributed. The contest ends at the end of the month.
Marker and Chastain came up with the idea for the company about a year ago.
"We wanted to start a company that would make a difference nationally and in the community," Marker said.
The contest allows Bring The Hope users to submit and vote on messages that will eventually turn into a T-shirt, he said. These messages are to portray an idea of hope, optimism or humor. Voters select their favorite messages, Marker said, and at the end of the month the top three messages are designed onto organic cotton T-shirts by the company. The T-shirts are put up for sale on the Web site and winners earn money for themselves and their charity of choice based on sales, he said.
Chastain and Marker will launch their company nationally next month, they said. They wanted to give the Ball State community the first chance to see and use the Web site before it goes national.
The founders said they wanted to incorporate Ball State into their company. They looked at different organizations on campus that do community service, they said, and felt College Mentors for Kids met their criteria.
Marker said the company will sell T-shirts in the Atrium and online for $15 today through Saturday. College Mentors for Kids will receive $5 for every T-shirt sold.
Marker said Bring The Hope is only using Ball State for its contest this month. The company will make its national launch in March and will have monthly contests for anyone in the nation. Marker said they will promote their Web site through Facebook, Twitter and other media outlets.
Jennifer Regnier, public relations intern for Bring The Hope, said contestants don't need graphic design skills to participate. Some T-shirt companies require users to submit their own design but Bring the Hope designs the T-shirts for their users, she said.
Chastain and Marker said a lot of people have interesting things to say, and the company gives these people a way to express their positive ideas to the world by putting their messages on T-shirts.
Regnier said the Web site had the same concept as threadless.com, except it doesn't use crude humor.
Marker said the people who participate would decide which direction the Web site goes and what messages are available on the T-shirts. He said it's an exciting thing to be handing the keys over to the people.
"We hope people will be interested in Bring The Hope," Marker said, "and that they will keep coming back to the site and tell people about it."
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