Holy Toledo Apparel fulfilling passion for people

When Jenn started designing, it was required by her school.

Now, the only requirement she has for herself is to repay the Houston community for its generosity to her while following her passion through Holy Toledo Apparel, an online apparel shop making t-shirts, hoodies and more which she operates and owns by herself.

“I really took to it naturally. After college, I thought I wanted to teach and got to the point where I almost took the test – but eventually I discovered that wasn’t really where I wanted to be,” she said. “The common denominator the whole time was that I never stopped designing for people.”

It began in a low-key manner, she said, with things such as party invitations and logos for friends. Jenn would then flit from job to job, doing anything from working at an auto parts store to being a florist and working in public relations, calling her current endeavor the result of a happy accident.

“I did a lot of different, weird things – but no matter how many jobs I was laid off from, I kept designing,” she said. “I kind of taught myself, and people started asking me to use my own influence rather than giving me ideas. That kind of took off, and here we are.”

Jenn has always possessed a creative streak, she said, but struggled to make it come to fruition with the traditional pen or pencil and paper. So she turned to YouTube and took some free courses on computer and printing design, and things took off.

“With the click of a mouse, it’s a lot more precise and easier to get the result that you want, whereas with all the other stuff it takes essentially a craft. Some of it can be taught, but a lot of these great artists are so natural with it, and I wasn’t blessed with that,” she said. “It gave me that creative outlet.”

About five years ago, Jenn began her day job, which also includes corporate branding, apparel promotions and graphic design. In 2016, she started creating shirts just for herself and her friends, handing out her business card to anyone who would see the shirts and want one for themselves.

But 2017, she said, is when it really took off after a change in ownership encouraged her to follow her passion and turn it into something more than a hobby.

Right off the bat, she knew something special could be in the cards with the support from the Houston community and her loved ones.

“The support off the bat was tremendous. It was rewarding because I’m a perfectionist – I sit and analyze everything and criticize everything I do,” she said. “To have people say they believed in what I was doing and the causes I was supporting and putting their money behind it was the coolest feeling. And the fact that I can use it to give back to other people, there’s nothing better.”

Sincere service

That desire to pour back into her hometown, she said, remains at the core of what she does at Holy Toledo, no matter what kind of monetary gains she makes from the endeavor. Even before creating Holy Toledo, Jenn said she would make small donations to the Astros Foundation, Sunshine Kids, and Ronald McDonald House.

Every month, she gives 5 percent of her proceeds from Holy Toledo to the Astros Foundation to help those in need (Click HERE to read the full Astros Foundation Mission Statement), and last year she donated a portion of her profits to children in need of Christmas gifts. Ultimately, she believes in giving back to the city she said previously supported her in a time of need, in the best way she knows how.

“At the end of the day, the little perks of this financially are cool, but the main idea behind it all was to be accessible to everybody, and be affordable,” she said.

Her perspective on helping those in need, she said, stems from when she lost her apartment as a result of Hurricane Ike in 2008 at the age of 21. Her city, she said, stepped up in a big way for her. And as she believes in the concept of paying things forward, she started to repay the city the moment she could.

She simply doesn’t know any other way to live than giving back to others, and Holy Toledo is no exception to that motto.

“I can’t show up in as big of a way as I’d like to, but everything counts. To that person who maybe just needs lunch for the day, it could feed them and put them in a better mood and give them a little bit of hope. There’s always something you can do, even if it’s not money,” she said. “If you can be a light in somebody’s life, every encounter is an opportunity to be that. It’s my way to virtually do that. It’s really cool to hear the stories.”

One of those stories she said, was one of a little boy whose mother lost her job and subsequently their apartment during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and would not have had a thing on Christmas morning if not for the donations of proceeds by – among others – Holy Toledo.

She even included a personalized card for the boy with Holy Toledo’s gift, and teared up as she recounted the story even a year later.

“Knowing he got to wake up to that on Christmas morning, I didn’t need anything else – everything fell to the side, and I thought that was the best feeling ever,” she said. “I was that kid in a lot of ways, and I want to keep that chain going.”

Big picture focus

From start to finish, Jenn said each shirt can take 10-15 minutes, so the amount of time needed to fill an order can vary. Each design starts on her iPad, designed and molded into what is called a vector file before it goes into the printer and onto the shirt, hoodie or other apparel. And though she operates mostly domestically, she has shipped orders to places such as Rhode Island, Los Angeles and even overseas to the U.K.

Each order gets a handwritten note along with it, along with a vinyl sticker and orange mailer bag.

“At the end of the day, I don’t want it to feel like you’re going on some cold website and ordering from a robot,” she said of the personalized touch.

That’s just another part of what Jenn has a passion for that can be fulfilled through Holy Toledo, which is bringing a community together in a simple way. One of the biggest thrills, she said, is seeing her designs being worn at Minute Maid Park, or having someone come up to her and asking where she got her shirt – one she created.

It gets her out of her bubble, but in a comfortable way, and helps create a community she never could have imagined. And though she has done all the work for Holy Toledo, she knows she may not have made it to this point without the support of her H-Town crew.

“If all of this ended tomorrow, I know that I have people behind me who believe in anything I lay my hands on. You can’t buy that kind of support,” she said. “It’s very authentic, and I always make a point to tell them how appreciative I am of them.”

It’s the kind of support she is eager to provide through Holy Toledo as long as she lives and breathes, knowing it’s all worth it if she can make a small difference to even one person.

“If I can’t give back with what I’m doing, then it doesn’t feel right to me,” she said. “I always want to have some kind of bigger picture.”

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