On July 31, 2024, Pittsburgh clothing brand Visions Attire teamed up with DTL Apparel for their second annual Youth Summer Jam, where they gave away backpacks and school supplies to school children at Highland Park.
The event showed children and families a fun time. There was face-painting, tattoos, ice cones, bouncy houses, food, and free haircuts.
Mikel Battles and Devyn Giovengo spearhead Visions Attire. Battles says they are more than a clothing line — they want to make a positive impact on the community.
“We've all been through so much, and we've just put a lot on the line to make it happen,” Battles tells Pittsburgh City Paper. “I’m happy to call the friends who have been a part of it family at this point. We're just one big family, one big team, and we were able to create a community of just people who like to push positivity.”
Visions wants to watch the community thrive. In 2017, as juniors in high school, Giovengo talked to Battles and Derek McFadden about the idea of starting a clothing line. They also had the goal of being beyond just that.
“We're a group of friends trying to push the community and the world to chase their dreams and chase their visions through our art and fashion,” Giovengo says.
Last year, Visions Attire gave away all 150 backpacks. This year, they planned on giving away 270 backpacks.
Giovengo says that there were fewer people in attendance this year, but they were able to make a connection with everyone and still gave away the majority of the backpacks. He says that those who attended stayed for hours, which was different than last year.
“I feel like this event was more of a representation of us, because obviously both of the events were by us, but [with] this one … we were a little more hands-on. We were able to communicate with everybody. Everybody left happy.”
Last year, some weren’t able to get a bookbag with such high turnout — this year, there were some backpacks left over. Giovengo went to apartment complexes, Boys and Girls Clubs, and other backpack drives to give them away.
He mentions that the turnout last year and its exposure led to more people donating supplies for the event, including middle schooler Joe Dix.
“He raised up towards $200 worth of supplies,” Giovengo says. “It's crazy, because that kid doesn't even realize how great he is already for doing so much for people that need it. He's just doing that out of the kindness of his heart … that's really the purpose of why we do this is to try to push more people to do stuff like that, and he's already doing it at such a young age.”
With the positive effects on the community, other clothing brands such as DTL Apparel are also doing their own backpack giveaways.
“We're actually going to donate to their backpack drives,” Battles says. “We're going to give them a couple backpacks ourselves to help them … We don't want to be the only company doing this. There's a lot of bigger companies in this world that make a lot more than us that can help the community. This is an eye-opener for them to do more to help the people who need it.”
The chance to work with their friends is what both Battles and Giovengo love.
Visions Attire is now expanding. There is now Visions Attire in the Philippines, where Battles has family.
“I actually had some cousins that aspired to get into clothing and fashion,” Battles says. “I said, ‘what's a better way to do it than just to start out with Visions Attire?’ So there’s actually a Visions Attire Philippines currently running that's already released clothes and that's already made sales.”
Battles adds that, with wages being different there, the money has helped change their lives and has helped put family members through school.
As for what’s next, they look forward to dropping their fall and winter collection. Battles also mentions a fashion show and a toy drive in the winter.
Battles and Giovengo say they’re grateful for the support through the past seven years. They continue to spread love through giving back.
“You never really know a kid's home situation either,” Giovengo says. “There's a lot of kids that the only time they eat is at school, so there's no telling how they're getting any of their materials for school that they need and how difficult that actually is. Being able to just provide that for them, so it's a worry that they might not have to face, is really cool for me.”
Battles shared the same sentiment.
“We just want to do good,” Battles says. “We just want to help the community. We just want to help the people around us. These local businesses are the people around us. They're the ones who need help, just like us, so we like to shop local. We like to support local and just continue to network. We all have a common goal.”
