Boston Strong T-Shirts Originated In Emerson College Dorm Room

Boston Strong T-shirt owners have the initiative of a few college students to thank for their apparel.

Emerson College senior Nick Reynolds, sophomore Chris Dobens and graduate Lane Brenner were at school when the Boston Marathon bombing occurred. They had thought about making T-shirts earlier in the year, and they capitalized on that idea when the opportunity presented itself to design a logo and simultaneously raise money for charity.

“Wait, no. That makes sense. Nick, let’s make T-shirts,” Dobens recalled saying, FOX Sports reported.

The shirts were simple in design —  blue shirts with yellow font to match the Boston Athletic Association’s 2013 Boston Marathon colors. For the text, they went with “Boston Strong.” This phrase alone would instantaneously define a city’s will to move forward while the hashtag #BostonStrong continues to trend on social media.

“It was right after President Obama had done the press conference, and he didn’t actually say the word ‘strength,’ he used the word ‘resilient’ or something like that,” Reynolds told FOX Sports. “There’s this idea that there’s a special sense of strength imbued in Bostonians or in the culture of Boston. It sounded nice. It looked good on a T-shirt.”

The trio used Ink to the People to publicize their design. By the morning after the first night they went live, they had sold 117 shirts. One year later, they have sold over 64,000 shirts and raised more than $978,000 for The One Fund.

Some criticize the Emerson scholars, claiming they receive a profit of their shirts, but the trio told FOX Sports that all their proceeds go directly to charity.

“I’m really, really hoping to see a lot of blue and yellow around that city,” Brenner said of this year’s marathon. “It’s probably one of my favorite cities in the world, and I think seeing something created in a dorm room all over that city would be awesome.”

Photo via Twitter/@williamlanday