Still pondering a Christmas gift that’s fun, different and, umm, not too pricey? On Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., visit Daily Planet’s one day, pop-up shop at the Historic Michigan Avenue Bridge Tower at Wacker Drive and stock up on hand-designed, hand-screened T-shirts for only $20.
The one-day “Give a Shi*t” program is Daily Planet’s way of giving back this holiday season, says Scott Marvel, president of the design and production studio.
Daily Planet donated 500 cotton T-shirts, asked 10 local artists to create original designs and had the shirts hand-screened by the Planet staff, to sell for $20 each.
“Creating the T-shirts was the easy part,” says Marvel. “But we needed help making sure the sale of the shirts would directly benefit the homeless.”
Marvel reached out to Julie Youngquist, executive director of Streetwise, whose homeless vendors sell Streetwise magazines on the street. “I felt selling the shirts was a perfect fit for our mission,” she says.
“We don’t believe in hand-outs but instead we encourage hand-ups. ‘Give a Shi*t’ is a Streetwise program, but with T-shirts instead of magazines.”
The vendors, along with Daily Planet staffers, will be stationed outside the Bridge Tower, and on the two floors inside, selling T-shirts, tote bags, notebooks and posters by local artists.
Proceeds from all items sold Wednesday will be divided equally among the Streetwise vendors.
The Coalition for Housing came up with the idea of holding a one-day, pop-up shop, and the shop’s unique bridge location was found by Jeanine Ringland Zwirn, Daily Planet’s business development director.
Artists providing designs for “Give a Shi*t” were Addhemar Sierralta from Havas Worldwide; Rick Conrad, AbelsonTaylor; Ron Linneman, A. Eicoff; John Stoll of Team Detroit and Scott Marvel of Daily Planet and T-shirt company Teetsy.com.
Also from Nate Azark, designer and CCO of 12LineStudio.com; Lauren Tarbox, Experiential Marketing Design from Groupon; Dana Hortlick, freelance art director; Emily Hoffmeyer, freelance artist and JRZ, street artist and sculptor.
“To be able to use our talents to help someone in our community is the greatest gift of all,” Marvel says.
You also may buy T-shirts at Giveashirt.net. Streetwise vendors also will benefit from online sales and will be hired to ship the shirts.
“My hope is that the response to the sale will be great and we can do it again in a couple of months,” says Marvel, reachable at 312/640-7447.
