2010 FIRE Winner

                    

Vivacity Apparel

Green Mountain High School, Lakewood, Coloardo

Students at Green Mountain High School in Lakewood created a line of t-shirts meant to change the conversations people are having about mental health by inviting the question “what does Vivacity mean?” Their response - “loving life, and living lively.” A resource brochure accompanied the shirts to help increase awareness of mental health struggle and link students in need to community resources.

Results from their social enterprise:

• Vivacity main graphic design features a tree exploding into life-affirming activities.
• Printed 400 shirts.
• Held a fashion show at Dazzle Jazz Club in Denver to debut their product line. The show included a skit about finding your own inner superhero to overcome the inner villains that plague us.
• Received additional seed funding from UMB Bank.
• Social enterprise broke even and had a social impact on 2,275 people.

What they say:

• Last year when we had a suicide here, the administration got hit hard by this; our project gives them hope. The administrators can feel that these issues are out of their hands – as our survey shows, students won’t go to them when there are problems. Our message let students know they are not alone and there are lots of resources to help. GMHS Class
• We opened others eyes as well as our own.
• Impact is the biggest part. We got tangible results from it.
• When I was selling chocolates, I am just raising money for me. But now we are selling for a good cause, a lot easier to sell something when it’s a good cause. If I started a business of my own I would make a social enterprise.
• Taught me to work with a group, so immense. You have to use team work and trust yourself. Put your whole self into it. Social enterprise will help me in the future, this experience helped me see business in a new way.