Sean Hughes from Thieving Acorn (left), Ben Adams from Stroker’s Screen Printing and Blair Nicholl from the National Distillery Company showing off the cyclone relief T-shirts - and a possible future Hawke’s Bay gin. Photo / Paul Taylor
Sean Hughes from Thieving Acorn (left), Ben Adams from Stroker’s Screen Printing and Blair Nicholl from the National Distillery Company showing off the cyclone relief T-shirts - and a possible future Hawke’s Bay gin. Photo / Paul Taylor
In less than a month since it created its first cyclone relief T-shirt, Thieving Acorn, a small clothing collective, has raised nearly $30,000 between the five areas that saw the most damage from Cyclone Gabrielle.
The team at Thieving Acorn was trying to find a way to raise money for those in need, and instead of selling their existing T-shirts, they decided to create a new one.
Stroker’s Screen Printing, Stems and Paper and Thieving Acorn came together to create a T-shirt, with 100 per cent of the proceeds to be be donated to Esk Valley.
Sean Hughes from Thieving Acorn and Ben Adams from Strokers Screen Printing decided to start off with an Esk Valley cyclone relief shirt under the Theiving Acorn brand, because that is where they are from and the damage really hit close to home for them.
The design they chose came from an old mural that sits on the wall of the old butchery across from the pub in Bayview that Hughes said he used to walk past every day on the way to Eskdale school.
Once deciding what they wanted to do, the boys pulled friend and artist Katrina Alexandra, known as Stems and Paper, into the loop to help digitise the artwork they wanted to use.
Flash flooding from Cyclone Gabrielle ripped through Esk Valley on February 14.
The Esk Valley shirt was a big hit, and once they were released online, the team made $12,000 in 72 hours.
Adams said he ordered 270 shirts before the first shirt was even released because he wasn’t sure how long the T-shirts were going to take to arrive.
“We had sold all of the shirts before they had even shown up,” he said.
After the success of the Esk Valley shirt, there were lots of people asking Theiving Acorn to do T-shirts for their areas.
Sticking to Hawke’s Bay, as that was what the group knew, they now have five shirts featuring Esk Valley, Pākōwhai, Kaweka Ward, Central Hawke’s Bay and Wairoa. 100 per cent of the profits of the shirts will go directly to the communities represented on the shirts.
Hughes and Adams picked out the areas and told Stems and Paper what landmarks they thought best represented the areas. She ran with it and designed all four of the new designs.
Adams said they have seen plenty more national sales after they released the whole collection, with one order coming from as far away as Stewart Island.
Since releasing the shirt, Hughes and Adams have been working non-stop around the clock, processing and printing orders.
During the week, Thieving Acorns and Strokers process orders nightly after work. However, over the weekend they are working full tilt - last Friday, the two were up until 11.30pm printing shirts, and then got up at 6am on Saturday to print and pack more orders, with more processing still to be done on Sunday. That weekend, they processed more than 800 orders.
Funds raised from the Esk Valley Shirt will go to the Bayview community trust, which is taking donations and has formed a committee to help with long-term support after the funding and support from the Red Cross, council and others runs out. Thieving Acorn has been invited to sit on the new committee.
Funds raised from the Kaweka Ward will be split between the four hubs that are servicing those rural communities.
Wairoa and CHB T-shirt funds are most likely going to be donated to the Mayoral Relief Fund unless Thieving Acorn comes across a more appropriate place to donate.
Thieving Acorn is still looking for the best place to donate the money raised for Pākōwhai.
While the T-shirts have been a big success, they aren’t the last cyclone fundraiser from the team at Thieving Acorn.
As Hughes is a gin distiller at the National Distillery Company in Napier, the two are partnering to create a Hawke’s Bay cyclone relief gin and Hawke’s Bay-wide T-shirt.
