At Strong Athletic, we believe in the power of teamwork both in and out of sports, which is why we’re excited to partner with New Avenues INK, a Portland, Oregon-based print shop that is producing our Strong Athletic Voter and Strong Nasty Woman shirts. New Avenues INK, a part of New Avenues business portfolio, provides paid job-training and support services to help young people so they can build up their skills and confidence to find and retain meaningful employment. We chatted with Sara Weihmann, New Avenues for Youth’s Director of Social Enterprise, to learn about their mission, why she and her team are supporting Strong Athletic, and why it’s important to vote in November. 

Tell us a little bit about yourself, New Avenues for Youth, and what the organization's mission is.

My name is Sara Weihmann and I am New Avenues for Youth’s Director of Social Enterprise. I oversee a portfolio of businesses that exist to offer high-value products and services to the community while also providing physical spaces for youth in our programs experiencing homelessness to get paid and receive on-the-job training.

New Avenues INK is one of the businesses in our portfolio. They offer screen-printing that produces cost-competitive, quality items for our customers while providing thousands of paid internship hours to young adults who assist with every aspect of the business — from hand-printing apparel to customer service, mixing ink to graphic design.

Our customers get the high-quality items they need to promote their brand while investing directly in youth building the skills and experience necessary to become self-sufficient and achieve their goals.

Since 1997, New Avenues for Youth is dedicated to the prevention and intervention of youth homelessness. Our programs and services have impacted more than 20,000 young people as they work to overcome barriers, pursue their goals, and realize their potential. From supporting basic needs like meals and counseling to providing opportunities for education, job training, employment, and housing, we meet youth where they are—and help them get where they want to go.

Our mission is to work in partnership with our community to prevent youth homelessness and provide young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness with the resources and skills needed to lead healthy, productive lives.

How do you think the mission of New Avenues for Youth relates to the mission of Strong Athletic?

Similar to Strong Athletic, New Avenues for Youth understands the importance of creating space. We create physical and community spaces for young people experiencing homelessness or marginalization to identify and access the resources they need to be successful. We are committed to making safe and equitable programs and spaces for our young people to thrive.

We love that New Avenues INK is helping us get our Strong Athletic Voter t-shirts out before November 2020. Can you speak more to the importance of voting, especially around youth-centered services and programs?

Where to begin?!? It has never been more critical to vote and advance programs and services that benefit those in our communities struggling the most. Our social enterprises, for example, rely on federal and local budgets to fund workforce training programs. Programs, like ours, are reliant on policies and funding that prepare people to find and maintain meaningful employment. Together, funding and policies are part of the solution to ending youth homelessness and having a robust economy.

Getting multiple voices and perspectives to the table to vote on a variety of issues is part of how we will move forward the types of policies that will create a better world. There is so much darkness and hate in our current political hellscape.

What is coming up for New Avenues?

Visit newavenues.org to learn more about upcoming opportunities.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Be like Strong Athletic! Get the high-quality screen-printed apparel and promotional items your brand needs while supporting a social enterprise that pays and trains young people experiencing homelessness. We need partnerships with great customers to fulfill our mission and support the brilliant and resilient young people in our programs. Let’s get them the supports and resources they need to get where they want to go.

From Strong Athletic

When it comes to producing our products, our goal at Strong Athletic is to use companies that are local and small scale. We source the blanks for our shirts from companies that are WARP certified, such as Bella Canvas and Star Tee. Once we get the blanks, we hire printers such as New Avenues INK to do the screen printing by hand. There are multiple reasons we like New Avenues INK. The first project that we did with New Avenues Ink was the screen printing of the We Are Nations shirts in 2019. Initially we looked for a screen printer that was Indigenous owned to do the printing, but we were unable to find one. We liked New Avenues INK mission driven business model and decided they would be a good second option. From the moment that we started the talks about the order they were super professional and easy to work with. We got the type of customer service that you really only get with small scale companies. The idea that a youth was getting training that would help them support theirselves in a career was also a plus. The integrity of the work that they produce is extremely satisfying and we received shirts from them that we felt good about shipping out. 

There are many ways to keep expenses low in the t-shirt industry, but unfortunately every hack or trick makes it so that one of the middle people who is part of the production line doesn't get their fair pay.  Strong Athletic could print on shirts that cost 1/5th of the price of the shirts we use, and we could use massive printing companies that would also charge us 1/2 the price of what we pay for printing, but that wouldn't feel right to us. As our good friend and founder of Pivotstar Clothing Company Lucy Croysdill once said, "When products are sold cheap, it usually means that someone is not getting paid what they deserve". We couldn't agree more with this statement and we know that members of the Strong Athletic Community agree with us- it's about supporting small business, "shopping small", paying people a fair wage and producing shirts, hats and fanny packs that are high quality. 

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