Ivory Ella delivered some holiday spirit to its hometown high school. The trendy elephant-themed apparel brand organized a donation of a fully stocked screen-print shop, with equipment and supplies worth about $36,000, to Westerly High School in Westerly, RI, where Ivory Ella is also based.

“It was a home run,” says Jay Reid, print production specialist for Ivory Ella and organizer of the event. “They have an amazing art and design program; the one thing missing was screen printing.”

Clothing brand Ivory Ella organized the donation of a fully stocked screen-print shop to Westerly High School in Rhode Island.

Reid reached out to his vendors and arranged for donations to be delivered to the school, then he helped set up the screen-printing shop once the equipment was on hand. M&R donated a four-color, one-station press; Ryonet/Allmade Apparel (asi/34341) donated a press and a light table; Workhorse Products donated a press and a dryer; Easiway donated environmentally friendly chemicals and a spray boot; Great Dane Graphics donated a clip art subscription; Stahls’ (asi/88984) donated a vinyl cutter; BBC donated a flash unit; and PolyOne Wilflex donated an ink mixing system and five gallons of white ink, according to Reid.

To boost the giving spirit, Ivory Ella donated 600 of its printed shirts (which retail for about $30 each) and distributed them to students who donated nonperishable food items or $10 to a local shelter. “We wanted the students to feel what it was like to pay it forward,” Reid says.

This is the third year in a row that Ivory Ella has arranged for a high school to get its own brand-new print shop. Last year, the brand held a contest with the help of SkillsUSA, and awarded printing equipment and supplies to Bay Path Regional Vocational Technical School in Charlton, MA.

In 2017, Ivory Ella surprised Lawrence County High School in Tennessee with a slew of screen-printing equipment and supplies, as well as special-edition Ivory Ella shirts. That school’s digital design class had been a runner-up in ASI’s T-shirt Challenge for Charity (a contest that Ivory Ella won). Reid said at the time that he wanted to do something nice for the class that almost beat Ivory Ella. “As the ball got rolling and more sponsors got on board, it just exploded,” he explained then.

Next year, Ivory Ella wants to repeat its giveaway a fourth time. Reid says he will likely advertise the contest – open to high schools across the country that are looking to start or improve their screen-printing classes – through Ivory Ella’s extensive social media network.

“A lot of these schools are taking these programs out,” Reid says. “I’m trying to put them back into schools. … I tell kids to go do college, but screen printing is a great thing to have in your back pocket as a hobby or side business.”