About the Strong Athletic Kiddo and Kid Crew Neck T-Shirt by Mommy Owned Company Strong Athletic
Strong Athletic is a company that is owned by Nadia Kean, a queer mom who has been in sports and athletics since she was a child. Growing up, she was inspired to be her best self when it came to playing sports. While the classroom didn't keep her engaged with the long hours spent sitting in a desk, the playground was her domaine. Nadia remembers playing on the playground with friends before and after school. One of her earliest and most proud memories from her childhood is of a game of tag that she played with school friends when she was about four. Nadia remembers how exciting and empowering it was to be chased by all of her friends, running through the playground, jumping over ropes, running through the sand box, climbing up the fort, sliding down the slide and all the while none of her classmates could catch her. She knew she was fast. A year later a family friend gave her their old pair of roller skates. The skates were white and went above her ankles. Nadia put those skates on that summer and only took them off to sleep and go swimming. She found herself in roller skating and was inspired to see just how fast should could skate. Skating gave her something to motivated and determined about. It gave her something that she did really well that had nothing to do with school work. Nadia went on to play other sports including volleyball, cross country and rowing. Growing up is hard for some kids. Nadia was not the most popular kid at school and often times felt awkward and like she didn't fit in with the other kids. She did however always feel like she had a place on the various sports teams that she played on. Sports were there for her when she needed them. They gave her a focus, a goal and something to do with her energy and excitement. Here's to all the strong athletic kids in the world who are active, who play sports and who find their strength in athletics.
About the Tultex Crew Neck T-shirt
The words Strong Athletic Kid or Strong Athletic Kiddo are printed in white ink on the front of this shirt. The Strong Athletic logo is printed in white ink on the front and the back of this t-shirt.
We know that there are a few companies that make awesome kids shirts with great slogans and sayings across the front. One thing we notice is that our shirts are usually about $5-$10 more expensive than the other shirts on the market. Ever wonder why there is such a price difference? There's a good chance that some of those companies are simply producing more shirts, faster, and so their overhead costs are lower. We can't speak for them and how they set their prices, but we can speak for ourselves. At Strong Athletic, we only use small-scale screen printers and the garments that we print on are always made in either W.A.R.P. Certified facilities or other facilities that meet CPSIA standards. We also pay all of our contract employees a pay rate that is in line with living wage standards. The majority of our shirts are associated with a non-profit and we donate a portion of profits (sometimes 100% of profits) to causes that hold dear. We believe that when products are cheap, someone is losing out on income. We don't want those people to be anyone involved in our supply chain or who work for Strong Athletic on a daily basis.
Every single Strong Athletic product is produced by a small scale screen printer or embroidery shop. Our snapback hats are embroidered by a small-scale, local embroidery shop called Vistago Print in Lago Vista Texas. The majority of our shirts are printed by Amanda in Austin, Texas who prints out of the Austin Screen Printer's Coop, a screen printing shop that is member owned and run in East Austin. When our shirts are not printed by Amanda they are printed by other small-scale screen printers such as Second Avenues Ink in Portland, Oregon or Leigh Valley Apparel Creations in Pennsylvania. The art for this design is based on the original artwork created by Cristen Perks in 2013 for Strong Athletic founder Nadia Kean. The Strong Athletic logo was created by Angel Ortega in 2015, until that point our shirts had the Get Smarty Coaching logo on them.
People either buy Strong Athletic for their kids, theirselves or for their friends. Because our shirts, hats and fanny packs are so often sent to people as gifts, we decided that we wanted to make the experience of opening a Strong Athletic package feel like you're opening a gift. When your package from Strong Athletic arrives, you'll immediately notice that the kraft mailer is biodegradable and that it's covered in our removable signature "We Believe" sticker. Opening the package you will find your shirt, wrapped in a "You are so Strong" wrapper. In addition to whatever you purchased you'll also find a few of our signature logo stickers and a smaller "We Believe" sticker, plus a postcard with the origin story of our company hand written to the recipient of the package. If you're sending this as a gift to a friend, you can have us include a hand-written message and we'll sign your name for you. Just write out what you want written on the notes in the comment section of the cart.
