Thanks to Big City Sportswear, we have GREAT NEWS for Parents and Students for Class of 2018 at Omak High School in Omak, WA!
Our story started a little over a week ago, when a student posted to the parents' group on Facebook. He advised us they had missed a deadline to get their class colored t-shirts done for the upcoming Homecoming Week. We went back and forth a bit, but being parents wanting to let the students meet the challenge, we didn't get involved.
One of our parents posted and inquired about the status of the t-shirts yesterday morning, Wednesday 9/27 at 7am. We learned that there was just seemed to be no way to meet the deadline for the required authorization forms and getting an order in.
Seeing as I felt and heard that many of us parents and our students would be disappointed if they couldn't be flying their graduating class color of purple in t-shirts during homecoming, I volunteered to reach out to a couple of contacts at production/print shops that I've worked with over the years to see if they could help.
Unfortunately, the cost quoted by my four contacts was over the budget with crazy expensive shipping charges, and timeline crunch for a short production turnaround to get a delivery of 100 printed shirts to us by this Friday or Saturday just wasn't doable.
It was by sheer fluke of a last-minute Google Search that I found a family owned and operated business in Rochester, NY, called Big City Sportswear.
Big City Sportswear Manager, Heather Bonacci, immediately identified what our budget and urgent timeline was, then discounted the cost of our products and 2-day shipping - guaranteeing we'd have the shirts to us in very rural Washington State by this Friday or Saturday, at the latest. This was wonderful news because our students need to be wearing their shirts by the next Monday, which was the launch of Homecoming Week.
I submitted the quickly designed artwork and placed the order at noon on yesterday, Tuesday 9/27... and got a proof from Big City Sportswear's Graphic Artist, Lisa Schlegel by 2pm and we were off and running... or so we thought... LOL! Come to find out, around 3pm, some of the students weren't thrilled with the down-and-dirty design we submitted.
Fortunately for us, it was Big City Sportswear to the rescue... again. I called Heather and she said that if we got new artwork in before they started the early morning production run, we could swap out the artwork. That was around 6:15pm and we had 6 hours to get a new design from the students and get it to Lisa. We're 3 hours behind NY and the students started scrambling to find someone who had graphics software experience to produce new artwork.
Ends up, the students did not have someone who could do a graphics design and file that was print ready. They did provide a website designed version that wasn't a graphics file around 10:30pm. So, I worked to 'tweak' that design with one of our students in between the times I was in a webinar. By 11pm, we had two versions of an updated design the students liked and we sent it in right about midnight, Pacific time.
We thought we missed the deadline, but Big City Sportswear was primed and ready for us! They took the designs and cleaned them up, creating clean artwork for the best design possible. The proof was approved and production began. I must say that Big City Sportswear and their entire team, including the CEO, Joe Gizzi, who followed up with me yesterday... were OUTSTANDING in patience, customer service and focused dedication to getting a design and printed t-shirts produced for us that our students and parents will be thrilled with. Ergo, this review.
I'll write another review once the shirts arrive and, after the kids have the shirts, I'll be asking (and really appreciate it if) parents and students can also write a review with thank you at their website and on their Facebook page (and wherever else we all can) that is 100%, FIVE STARS, POSITIVE REVIEWS for this FANTASTIC family owned and operated business.
Mahalo nui loa... Thank you very much... to the entire team at Big City Sportswear.
Malama pono,
C. Keiki Stacy Weigle
Omak High School Class of 2018 Parent
- C. Keiki Stacy Weigle