Grade 4 student’s T-shirt design idea comes to life

Giant Tiger transformed Grade 4 student Tristan Holliwell’s T-shirt idea into a reality.

Tristan Holliwell is a grade 4 student at Terry Fox Elementary School in Barrie whose T-shirt design idea is now available at a Giant Tiger near you.

Holliwell said for a school project, everyone in the class had to choose a business, write to them and pitch an idea.

But who knew one of the ideas would actually turn into a reality.

Holliwell’s was an angel fish wearing a cowboy hat. Because, why not?

“I was joking around with my friend, Dylan, and I thought, people like cowboys and people like fish, and that’s how I got the idea of an angel fish wearing a cowboy hat,” said Holliwell. “And I wrote it to Giant Tiger on the computer. I typed it up and then my teacher printed it.”

He had some solid reasoning behind his sales pitch.

“I said one of the reasons they should make the shirt is because if there’s a group of fishermen going to go fishing, they should wear it because it’s associated with fishing.”

Fair enough.

“And another reason is, some people like cowboys and some people might think it was funny. So they could purchase it thinking it was a funny shirt,” explained Holliwell.

He said it was a lot of fun to design the shirt and even more exciting when he found out it was actually going to get made when Jamal Jarboua, the owner and manager of Giant Tiger in the city’s north end on Cundles Road East, made the trip to the school to tell Holliwell the good news himself.

“I was jumping up and down. I was smiling a lot,” Holliwell recalled. “When I got in the car, I saw my mom and my grandma. And I was like, ‘You won’t guess what I found out today’ and then I told them. They were shocked when they found out.”

Jarboua said when he received the letter, he thought it was a resume at first and thought a nine-year-old might be a little young to work at Giant Tiger. But when he realized what it was, it was a no brainer.

“My first response was, ‘I’m going to make this kid a shirt,’” said Jarboua.

Not only did the shirt come to fruition after plugging away on AI for a design, but it turned into something even bigger.

Jarboua said Giant Tiger already partners with the school for the Terry Fox Run so he thought there could be an opportunity here. It turned out there was.

He has ordered 1,000 shirts available for the public to purchase in store or online with 100 per cent of the profits going back to the school.

Jarboua said usually with new stock, he orders a year out, but this was all taken care of within three weeks.

“The beauty of Giant Tiger is we mould our stores according to our customers,” said Jarboua. “It’s about listening to our customers whether they’re 9 years old or 99 years old.”

For Jarboua, the joy of his job comes from giving back to the community.

“People in the office were asking, ‘what do you love about your job?’ and this is it right here,” said Jarboua. “Like the fact that we can do something in our community that’s beneficial and fun and as far as Tristan’s concerned, this is life-changing.”

As of Monday, the shirts can be purchased at the north end Giant Tiger store or online for $10.