With these funds I will...provide an opportunity for my students to practice the creative design process while also developing entrepreneurial skills in our school makerspace. Despite being relatively new, our school makerspace offers a variety of options for our students to explore, tinker, communicate, collaborate, and to create. Students can chose activities that involve computer coding, engineering, sewing, crafting, the creation of original productions, and much more. We also offer after school clubs that allow students to explore a variety of activities such as dance, technology, art, comic book creation, cheer, and step club. With your support we would like to add a t-shirt club to our list of offerings. The t-shirt club would open up a whole new practical skill set for our students. The students in this club would experience the entire creative design process from identifying a vision, brainstorming ideas, creating an original design, marketing their product, and creating their product. We envision our t-shirt club members having “business meetings”  with other students from their grade level and students from other clubs to collaborate about a design for the particular grade level or club.

Adding the t-shirt club to our makerspace, will change the trajectory of many of our students’ futures. By following the creative design process, encouraging communication and collaboration among clubs, and exposing students to the accounting side of a business, we are providing students with skills that are adaptable to any business model. To ensure the sustainability of our t-shirt business, students will study the cost and profit margin for each item manufactured. While we do want to keep our business in the black, we also want our students to create affordable, quality merchandise that will make the products more accessible to their fellow classmates.

A long term goal for this project is to have our students develop a school spirit store that will serve students, staff, and community members. Merchandise will include shirts, hats, jackets, tumblers, and monogrammed items thus increasing the overall real life application of this project and insuring sustainability of not only this project but the overall future of our school makerspace.

With this funds I will purchase:

BestEquip Heat Presses $383

Epson T252120-BCS DURABrite Utltra Black and Color Ink - $52

Epson Work Force WF-7610Wireless Color All-in-One Inkjet Printer- $219

Silhouette Cameo Heat Transfer Starter Kit Bundle $243

SISER Easy Weed Heat Transfer Vinyl, 12 x 15 12-color starter Bundle- $32 x 2 = $64

NEENAH 3G Jet Opaque Heat Transfer Paper 8.5 x 11 Custom Pack 100 Sheets- $70 x 3 = $210

Jet-Pro Soft Stretch Inkjet Heat Transfer Paper 8.5 x 11 100 Sheets $49 x 3 = $147

3 Pack Teflon Sheet For 16x20 Heat Press Transfer Sheet  $9

T-shirts $300

Total= $1,769

Back Up Plan