Alumnus gets mixed reviews when giving back

A Keene State College alumnus is giving back to the Keene community by creating t-shirts to help restore positivity after the recent riots during Pumpkin Festival.

Tim Pipp, KSC alumnus and owner of Beeze Tees Screen Printing, runs the local screen-printing company in the heart of Keene, New Hampshire.

Beeze Tees works with roughly 500 to 600 businesses, schools and other associations to satisfy their needs of custom apparel.

He came up with the idea of a “Keene Strong” t-shirt one day simply driving to work the Monday after Pumpkin Fest weekend. He came in, designed it and had it posted on Facebook to see what reviews he would get.

Photo Illustration by Kyle Bailey / Photo Editor

“After everything happened [surrounding Pumpkin Fest], I was driving into work and I thought ‘Well, you know I don’t really know how to give back, other than what I do, which is make t-shirts,’” Pipp said.

The company has gotten a lot of alumni and parents of current students emailing them for shirts — they are now up to about 70 that have been sold so far.

On the other hand, others had their own opinions and mixed reviews on the “Keene Strong” tee. “With anything in business, there’s always going to be the nice airs, there’s always going to be someone with the opinion not the same as mine or everyone else’s,” Pipp said.

“I have mixed feelings about it [“Keene Strong” t-shirt],” KSC student Brooke Hatanaka said.

“I feel like it’s a take off of ‘Boston Strong.’ The Boston bombings definitely hit me personally because it’s my city and I know people that were there and ran in the race. It can be compared with Keene, but the situations are definitely different and I’m not sure it can be considered similar enough,” she added.

Although it hits home for Hatanaka, she also stated, “I do think there needs to be something that will bring the community together.”

“The ‘Keene Strong’ [t-shirt] isn’t about Pumpkin Fest, it’s not about riots, it’s about the community coming together and being strong together,” Pipp said.

Beeze Tees is working on creating an organization around “Keene Strong” to raise money and give it back to the community.

Depending on how much they raise, the Beeze Tees team might split the money up and give to different organizations around the area.

“One of the people just didn’t like the idea of ‘Keene Strong’ because of Boston, but this had nothing to do with Boston. Boston had nothing to do with bombings — it was about the city coming together. Then there were other comments about what we were going to use the funds for, and [people] wanted to make sure that we weren’t going to keep any profits,” Pipp said.

KSC student Rachel Butler said, “While being close to Boston, I don’t think that ‘Keene Strong’ was the best idea.”

When it comes to negative comments, Pipp sits back and thinks about it first before he says anything.

The people that were writing negative comments had stopped on their own.

“There were people on there that were fighting for me, which I didn’t ask for, but it was nice to see that,” Pipp said.

While creating these new shirts, Beeze Tees is currently on the move to a new location on Main St. in Keene.

“Anywhere that we’ve been before has been to make it work, now were building this to make it work for us,” Pipp said.

Pipp and his team primarily focus on screen-printing.

However, they will print on any material that can be printed on. “Anything from pens and cups to tote bags and mugs,” Pipp said.

Sheley Iava can be contacted at shelby.iava@ksc.keene.edu