By Deron Hamel
Epilepsy Ontario has created an online store to help people support programs and services for those living with epilepsy as well as to spread epilepsy awareness – and to look good while doing so.
The Epilepsy Shop was born in 2020 and has been selling an array of colourful T-shirts and hoodies embossed with campaign names to help support local epilepsy agencies and to raise awareness of seizure disorders.
The idea for the Epilepsy Shop was hatched by Trevor Gordon, Epilepsy Ontario’s social media co-ordinator.
Trevor says he came up with the idea after noticing there was a lack of epilepsy awareness apparel that was made locally and used proceeds to support epilepsy organizations.
He reached out to a graphic designer he knows, Shaun Curtis, whose resumé includes work with numerous professional sports teams including the Toronto Raptors and brands like Jollibee and Disney, for help getting the project off the ground.
“We wanted to come up with a shop where people could buy epilepsy awareness shirts and those proceeds would go to benefit epilepsy organizations,” Trevor tells Voices of Epilepsy.
People can visit the Epilepsy Shop and find regular T-shirts, women’s cut T-shirts or hoodies in a variety of colours and sizes. Every item of clothing is created on demand, so there’s no waste and all profits go towards supporting epilepsy services and programs.
The Epilepsy Shop delivers merchandise across Canada and the U.S. and shoppers pay the same flat delivery rate no matter how many items they order.
The Epilepsy Shop’s most popular items at the moment are from the Screw Epilepsy line. These shirts and hoodies feature an image of a screw next to the word “epilepsy.”
There is also a new line called Good Vibes, featuring a mascot, a cartoon brain called Cortex.
“(The Epilepsy Shop) is still new and we’re always trying to add to our inventory and come up with new shirt ideas,” Trevor says.
Additionally, Epilepsy Ontario has reached out to influencers on TikTok as well as to Canadian recording artist Jann Arden to help promote the merchandise, Trevor says, noting the organization wants to raise lots of awareness about the Epilepsy Shop.
“It’s not just about buying the shirts; it’s about the message,” he says. “One of the goals of the shop is to make promoting epilepsy awareness stylish, fun and cool.
“We don’t want to create a shirt that will gather dust on a shelf; we want to create an awareness shirt that you want to wear and show off.”
Click here to visit the Epilepsy Shop. You can use the discount code VOICES to get 30 per cent off your purchase.
