Blue Button Apparel shares skills with youth

When you meet Scott Ellis, you get the feeling that he’s the kind of guy who would give you the shirt right off his back. Actually, Ellis would more than likely ask instead, ‘Can I teach you how to make your own?’ It’s this mindset that led Ellis to create Blue Button Apparel, an eco-friendly screen printing business in Spokane that puts at-risk youth to work and hopefully on a path to self-sufficiency. “I wanted to empower them to build their life, move beyond just giving them things to get by,” said Ellis. Although Ellis had found a connection with underprivileged youth during his summers in college spent working at Tall Timber Ranch, a summer camp near Leavenworth, Wash., his belief that success is measured in the transformation of lives didn’t initially take center stage in his post-college plan. Upon graduating from Whitworth in Business Management, his dream job was to manage a ski resort somewhere, combining his passion of skiing with financial security. Then a group of Rogers High School students changed that plan. In 2007, Barb Silvey, a Rogers’ counselor, and her students approached Hillyard’s Crosswalk Community Church—where Ellis’ attended church at the time—and asked if the congregation could donate items like clothing and toiletries to homeless students. Ellis’ reaction was “Wait a minute…homeless? Why are they homeless?” Even after the church put together donations, Ellis wanted to find out more. So he volunteered at the school, and realized how bleak many students’ lives were. He learned that roughly 10 percent of the Hillyard student population was either living on their own or completely homeless, due to reasons beyond their control or because they were trying to escape negative domestic situations. He found that few of the students were employed due to lack of skills, appropriate clothing, and/or transportation issues. Some that did have jobs used their paychecks for family expenses or a parent’s drug habit. Ellis, who was working at REI at the time, started looking at ways to give these students a hand up into more prosperous, fulfilling lives. His first idea was to open a coffee shop in the Hillyard area and employ students. However after six months of coming up against nothing but “red tape and brick walls,” Ellis had another thought. “While most retailers were crying about sales, REI had lines out the door, which made me think, ‘They’re really on to something here; selling organic, socially responsible items really appeals to consumers, no matter the economy,’ ” he said. So he started researching what it would take to organically screen print shirts. Seeing a lack of small, professional screen printers in the area working with organic products, encouraged Ellis that he may have found a niche. Within two months, he had a loan and was up and running, even if he wasn’t quite sure how to do the work. “I didn’t have a clue how to print t-shirts,” said Ellis. “I just ordered the equipment, bit the bullet and watched a lot of YouTube videos.” That was March 2008. Four years later, Blue Button is still unique in Spokane’s business community. The company has little competition, and Ellis says the store has been “pretty slammed” since last March. Now, he talks about finding a larger space and employing five to 10 students at a time. While he says the sustainable aspect of his business was somewhat of a by-product of wanting to help disadvantaged youth, Ellis said it has enabled him to teach students a very responsible way of doing business and how to contribute on local and global levels. What sets Blue Button apart from conventional printers is its use of water-based inks and soy-based cleaners as opposed to petroleum-based. It prints on 100 percent organic, Fair Trade t-shirts made from cotton, bamboo and recycled plastic bottles. Although a more labor-intensive process (and more expensive), the water-based ink can print on just about anything and gives Blue Button shirts “the softest feel around.” “If customers can’t afford the 100 percent organic shirts, we can provide another product but then we use the organic ink as hopefully their ‘gateway drug’ so they won’t go back to conventional,” says Ellis. The printing process is completely manual other than a computer generating the design, and drying the shirts on the conveyor belt which moves them through an “essentially-big-pizza-oven” to dry. Prior to drying, five employees at a time can print on the manual printing press which consists of five rotating stations. The Blue Button team, which includes the three to four students Ellis typically employs for a few months at a time (sometimes longer), an AmeriVista employee and Ellis himself, can generate 400-500 shirts a day, filling orders typically between 3,000 and 3,500 shirts. Since Blue Button is a non-profit, it obtains funding from organizations such as Catholic Charities, the Community Building Foundation, and Next Generation Source—an offshoot of the government employment security program WorkSource—which sometimes pays students for one to three months. Ellis obtains very little private funding, but will be reaching out to that segment of the population more in 2012. Referring to his business as a “ministry without requiring the kids to attend church or a youth group” — avenues which may not appeal to some — Ellis makes students feel comfortable and welcome, teaches them how to act responsibly and provides valuable industry skills, a paycheck, food at the end of each shift, and skills to succeed. It’s the success stories of students who normally might have fallen through the cracks that are now earning community awards and attending college that sustain Ellis’ drive and mission with Blue Button Apparel. Being able to help students in need, while lessening his carbon footprint, is the added bonus. “The business idea came to me by basically process of elimination,” he said. “But it just ended up making so much sense, and in the long run I’ve learned so much and hopefully have passed that on to the students.”