Summer camp is all about making memories, but at Camp Smile, held at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA, it was also about making T-shirts. On the first day of camp, Allen Shubert, president of Rutler Screen Printing in Easton, PA, visited the 44 participating youngsters to help them create custom artwork or color in one of the stock images he provided.

Five days later, he returned with a fat stack of white tees, all digitally printed with campers’ designs. Shubert says he was thrilled to deliver these one-of-a-kind keepsakes to Camp Smile.

“The kids loved it,” says Tracy Stauffer, marketing and community relations coordinator of the Pediatric Cancer Foundation of the Lehigh Valley, which runs the weeklong day camp for kids, 4-12, who are fighting cancer or have siblings battling the disease. “It was absolutely fantastic.”

Shubert got the idea for what Rutler calls its “Ultimate Spiritwear” service after buying a DTG machine last year, adding to the shop’s lineup of seven automatic screen-printing presses and 16 embroidery heads. Shubert or another employee will visit a sports team or other group, with a sheaf of relevant pre-printed designs featuring the team name. Or participants can sketch and color something from scratch. Thanks to the DTG technology, Rutler can quickly and easily turn the one-off designs into T-shirts. “Everybody has T-shirts, but how many people have one they designed themselves?” Shubert asks.

The Camp Smile shirts were a donation – Rutler tries to give out at least 100 free shirts to worthy causes each month – but other Ultimate Spiritwear orders provide good margins for the shop, since the service has such a high perceived value, Shubert says.

Although Rutler is primarily a contract shop, Shubert says he’s always trying to come up with unique ideas to differentiate his business. Take, for example, the Kid Zone, a value add in the showroom of his 18,000-square-foot shop. Shubert was frustrated by the potentially disruptive phenomenon of young children tagging along when harried parents place garment orders, so he set up a kid-sized table and stocked it with crayons, scrap paper and coloring pages. With the magic of DTG, Rutler transforms the visiting child’s drawing into a unique T-shirt and throws it into the parent’s order, gratis. “It doesn’t cost a ton, and the kids think it’s awesome,” Shubert explains.

Shubert is already planning next year’s visit to Camp Smile. He wants to up the memento factor by having each camper sign their name on a piece of paper. Rutler will then digitally print the collected signatures onto the back of the T-shirts.