When we sat down as a board to discuss what we would be submitting for IC Shuk 2019, we had no idea that in the next few hours we would make a decision that would change our chapter, and the entire Order, for the better. In the past few years at IC Shuk, my chapter has sold our famous AZA crewnecks, and people from all over BBYO would buy them each and every year. Due to their extreme popularity, my board really saw no reason to change our submission. We had almost officially decided that we would continue to sell our crewnecks, but then I shared an idea that was risky, but could also work out extremely well for our chapter. I had the idea to sell the AZA sweatshirts that we had made as board apparel the previous semester.

The idea for the sweatshirts was simple. It was just a twist on our classic AZA crewneck. It was the same colors and same material, but instead of a crewneck it was a sweatshirt with a hood and a pocket in the front. When we made it for board apparel, we had no idea that it would turn out to be in as high of demand as it did. When board would wear the sweatshirts to events and conventions, others would take notice and come up to us complimenting the design and sayingthat they would pay for one of their own. At first, we did not want to sell the new sweatshirts, as there were only nine in existence and it was a special concept shared by our board. But time went by, and we realized that we wanted to share these sweatshirts with the Movement so that they could also show their AZA pride—that is why I decided to sell them at IC 2019.

Once we decided we would be selling the shirts, the rest was easy. They basically sold themselves. We priced them at $25, making them one of the cheapest sweatshirts available at Shuk, which proved to be an excellent strategy. We ended up making nearly $3,000 from the sweatshirts alone, which is a remarkable number that I could not have even imagined we could make. With that $3,000 dollars, we donated a portion of to the ISF, and the rest will go to making my chapter the best it can be for years to come. My only wish is that we had figured this out sooner, but now we will have an amazing product to sell at IC for years to come. Be on the look out for them next year, you won’t want to miss out!