AUGUSTA, Ga (WJBF)- A popular 2020 campaign to support local bars and restaurants during the pandemic is back. After 5 years the “We Give A Shirt” initiative has a new goal.
“We love Augusta and we like to help. And we knew we needed to do something. We knew that we had the talent and the capabilities and the spirit to do something that could be impactful,” said Daniel Stewart, president Wier/Stewart.When the pandemic shut everything down in 2020, small businesses were in danger of closing. Wier/Stewart and Showpony started the “We Give a Shirt” campaign to help.
They designed t-shirts and $10 from each sale was donated to the business. It started out small, then blew up.“We had to pivot. We were originally just going to launch these five or ten shirts for our closest friends, and call it a day. And when it caught fire, we were getting emails left and right. ‘Do a shirt for me. I want a shirt. Do a shirt. Can you do a shirt for our organization?’ And we said ‘ Golly, now we’ve got a full blown marketing campaign to consider,” Stewart laughed.For three to four months they kept the campaign going, raising around $200,000 for local businesses.
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Stewart said requests to restart “We Give A Shirt” have never stopped, so they did.“And it’s just one of the more fun things we do here internally. So five years, five charities this go round. It just made sense to bring it back. New colors for each design. So it feels a little bit different. And if you missed out on a shirt last time in 2020, it might show back up in the store and you have your chance to get it.”There will be five shirts at a time available for order over 2 weeks. After those designs close, five new designs will be available while the previous orders are filled. $10 from each shirt goes to one of five charities.“We do support a lot of nonprofits here at Wier/Stewart. Some of our favorite work is doing pro-bono stuff for the arts. We love charities for kids. And each shirt is going to benefit one of five charities that is really near and dear to our hearts here at Wier/Stewart and Showpony. So all the charities have kind of a personal connection to us here at the company,” explained Stewart.
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Right now, t-shirts for Luigi’s, Sports Center, Freeman’s BBQ, Metro Pub and Coffeehouse and Nacho Mama’s are available for $25 each. You can buy them on Showpony’s website…