South Park’s Sound Off Apparel gets fans, bands involved in supporting local nonprofits

By Alex Owens | SDUN Reporter

Erin Goss and Mark Maigaard are trying to make the world a better place, one T-shirt at a time, and one month at a time.

The South Park-based duo are the organizers of Sound Off Apparel, a new project that raises money for charity through T-shirt sales.

It works like this: Goss, a media professional, and Maigaard, the drummer of the highly regarded rock band Louis XIV, help bands design special limited-edition T-shirts to sell at shows during a chosen month.

The shirts sell for $23, with $7 going to a charity of the band’s choice.

Goss said the idea came up when Maigaard met her for lunch in Santee, Calif. after coming back from a European tour.

“Touring can take its toll so we were brainstorming ideas on where to go in the long term,” Goss said. “I had been volunteering for the Humane Society and we wanted a way to help out worthy causes and get bands on board.”

As a professional musician for many years, Maigaard was well aware of the power T-shirts have in promoting bands, and thought it was a great way to help support causes close to the hearts of participating musicians.

“[T-shirts] raise awareness of a band, and wearing them gets the fans involved,” Maigaard said. “These shirts help the fans learn about charities that the musicians believe in.”

The program got off the ground in July with help from the band Transfer, which had just come off a successful European tour with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

“I’m really good friends with them and a huge fan,” Maigaard said. “They were the perfect band.”

Goss said she and Maigaard brought in artist Nilo Naghdi to help the band come up with a shirt design that would both represent their band and their chosen charity, the Center for Community Solutions (CCS), which provides prevention and intervention services for sexual assault and relationship violence to over 11,000 individuals each year.

“The band tossed off different ideas that would represent the charity while being hopeful and embodying the work of the band,” Goss said. “The idea of a tree came up and the band members each doodled their different ideas, which Nilo utilized in the final work.”

About 100 shirts were sold with approximately $700 going to CCS, which Goss said exceeded expectations.

For August, four bands will be wearing and selling a shirt specially designed by artist Tim Lowman: his own band, Low Volts, as well as Blackout Party, Flaggs and Dirty Sirens. Funds raised from the shirts will benefit Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego.

Goss is happy with the results so far, but said she and Maigaard are making every effort to keep costs low so that the charities can get as much money as possible.

“We print to order because having no inventory keeps costs down,” she said. “We move to new bands and news designers each month.”

So far, Sound Off Apparel is working with San Diego bands exclusively, but Goss said Transfer fans from as far as Australia and Russia ordered the limited-edition shirts, and there is other reason to think the project has potential.

“The first month exceeded sales expectations and the House of Blues reached out about working with us,” she said. “Eventually, we’d like to get [a] bigger band involved as well as corporate underwriting to cover the costs of the shirts so that the charities can get the most money possible.”

For more information, visit soundoffapparel.com or Facebook.com/soundoffapparel/.