Students Design, Sell T-Shirts For Charity

Students at are learning about marketing and advertising and raising money for charity in the process.

About 100 students from Jocelyn Voskian’s business and accounting classes are designing, marketing, and selling T-shirts to raise money for national charities.

The students are divided into four teams. Each team created an original design for their T-shirt. Teams had to research vendors to find the best price for manufacturing the shirts. Accounting students are responsible for overseeing each team’s finances.

Each team must endeavor to make the most money possible, just as a real business would. The project is in its first year of existence.

Each team had to create its own marketing strategy using social media applications and the Internet.

“I wanted them to have a project where they got some hands-on experience and do something real out in the world,” Voskian said. “But I truly believe in giving to charities so I decided to make that a requirement of the assignment.”

Each team will donate all the proceeds from their project to one of four charities: The Make A Wish Foundation (MWF), the Autism Society of America (ASA), the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), and the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The students selected the charities due to very personal experiences some team members had with the disease. They all know someone who has or has died from one of the diseases.

“We’re applying ourselves in a very real way to something and seeing what we know and if what we’re doing works,” student Ken Steimack said.

Steimack’s team selected to raise money for the LLS. Steimack’s mother died of cancer.

“A lot of people were pushing animal cruelty or something else, but we all wanted to make this a personal experience, not just for us, but for the people we’re selling the tickets too,” Steimack said.

His classmates agreed.

“Let’s do what we can to forward research being conducted to find a cure for these diseases,” Andrew Tornabene said. Tornabene’s team is donating its profits to the ASA. “Let’s use what we make from this to take care of the patients.”

For the students, the challenge of being accountable for their actions and how much money they make is what they find so appealing about the assignment. It is also something that researchers at the organizations and charities must constantly battle with, the kids said.

“At first, when we started the project we started thinking about it in terms of what grade we might get,” said George Balekji. His team is raising money for the MWF. “It’s so much more than that now.”

The students are selling the T-shirts at the school and online. To purchase a T-shirt online, click here. To watch videos each team created for the project, click here.

Students from Wayne Valley are also organizing and running the annual Relay for Life on May 12, an annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society. Hundreds of people attend the annual overnight event.

Order forms for each of the teams are attached to this article. They are due back to Wayne Valley by May 10 by mail. They can be dropped off at the school office until May 13. Checks should be made out to cash.