Sophomores Nicole Bolsajian, Hunter Kolodziej, Lucas Meyer, Ethan Mibu, Kate Ramallo, Max Riley and Joe Stazkow joined forces to create AREV Apparel in an effort to raise awareness for skin cancer.
Mibu and Riley began the clothing line when they sold hats and various beach apparel to residents of the South Bay over the summer. Visor Gang was the original name of the company, but Riley and Mibu added new members who eventually decided that AREV, the Armenian word for sun, correlated more with the company’s overall mission of preventing the spread of skin cancer.
“We started our company with the goal of helping skin cancer research and giving the members valuable entrepreneurial and creative experience and just having fun working together,” Riley said.
AREV Apparel advocates for various types of skin cancers that are especially prominent in different communities across the South Bay. The original creators, Mibu and Riley, united to design apparel for kids and adults in the beach communities to advocate skin cancer awareness and shed light on the various ways to prevent it.
“My family and I have not been directly affected by skin cancer, but a few close family friends have been affected by it,” Mibu said. “The reason why I wanted to start this company was to simply help raise money for skin cancer research, as the issue is one that frequently affects those around us in our community.”
Meyer is the accounting and financial manager and manages the company’s profit. The company donates the entire profit to charities, and 50% of it goes to skin cancer research corporations in Armenia.
“The main organizations that we will donate to are directly involved with skin cancer research and treatment methods,” Meyer said. “We are still deciding which organizations we would like to donate the last 50% of our profit to.”
AREV offers a variety of apparel ranging from visors to sweatshirts. AREV Apparel focuses on beach style apparel in hopes that people will wear it at the beach in order to protect themselves
from the sun to prevent the risk of skin cancer, Riley and Mibu said They sell hats, visors, colored shirts and hoodies on their website for $15, $22, $27 and $40, respectively.
“Our clothing designer [Kate Ramallo] helped us market and change our brand to be more appealing to our target audience, which is kids our age,” Mibu said. “We use an online service to create and ship our clothing directly to customers.”
Mibu and Riley hope to expand their business and eventually sell to people outside of the South Bay. They would also like to create a wider range of apparel with more options and different styles of clothing.
“We will probably keep our company and goals the same; however my final goal for the company is to grow and expand our products, possibly into local shops and to set a precedent for other companies contribute to significant causes,” Mibu said.
Leave a Reply