A shout-out from Canadian TV personality and designer Jillian Harris was a big boost for a Williams Lake business’s Pink Shirt Day campaign this year.
When Harris received a package of Pink Shirt Day T-shirts from Bob’s Footwear and Apparel Inc. she posted about it on her Instagram with a short video, saying while they’d arrived a day late, she planned to hang onto them for next year and said the shirts were great to wear year round.
“Her followers went nuts - we still have orders coming in,” said Alyssa Ilnicki who owns the store with her husband Tyler Ilnicki, brother-in-law Jorden Ilnicki and sister-in-law Kelsey Ilnicki. “It was such a big deal for us.”
To date the campaign has raised enough to donate $1,100.
A year ago Ilnicki taught herself how to do customized hand-embroidered designs on the elastic portion of Blundstones boots.
“I’d seen it done before and thought it was cool,” she said.
When she shared a post on social media of the pair she embroidered for herself it went viral.
She was getting over 30 requests for the embroidered Blundstones a week.
Ilnicki did more than 130 pairs in the first year, mailing orders off to Greenland, Puerto Rico, Australia and all over.
Now, she said, she has limited it to bridal orders only because she could not keep up. So far in 2023, she has 40 orders from brides in 2023.
Harris was interested in the Blundstones and ordered a pair, Ilnicki said, noting she then had a contact on Harris’s team who she contacted about the Pink Shirt Day T-shirts to see about mailing some to Harris.
Bob’s announced it was doing the Pink Shirt Day campaign in January, with 50 per cent of all profits going to CKNW Kids’ Fund’s Pink Shirt Day initiative.
It was the first year the store did the campaign and they received hundreds of orders locally.
“That was unexpected but super cool,” Ilnicki said. “We couldn’t even keep up. As soon as we were making them they were sold.”
There were three different shirts to choose from - a Jurassic-park look with the words Make bullying extinct, a donut with pink icing and coloured sparkles and the words Donut Bully, sprinkle kindness, and a third one with a pink smiley face and the words Be a Buddy Not a Bully on the front of the shirt and Be Kind repeated four times on the back.
Ilnicki said they are now doing a St. Patrick’s Day T-shirt campaign and 20 per cent of the profit will go to BGC Williams Lake Club, formerly known and Boys and Girls Club of Williams Lake and District.
monica.lamb-yorski@wltribune.com
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