Arnold couple wants to elevate their family and city through T-shirt printing company

An Arnold couple plans to create their new business alongside a growing city.

Mark and Crystal Saxon founded their T-shirt printing business, Elevate Arnold, on a design by their 6-year-old daughter, Audrey, around Valentine’s Day this year.

Audrey’s shirt, featuring a heart with the word “Love” within it in sign language symbols, proved popular enough that they launched a website after finding they couldn’t keep up with demand for it through a Facebook page.

“It had a lot to do with the positive response from the community,” Crystal Saxon said. “It gave us enough traffic and momentum.”

That original design is no longer available, but a collection of Audrey’s designs, called “Auddish,” is featured on the Elevate Arnold website, among several others.

Now, the Saxons run the business from Arnold, where their living room is their shop.

“We removed the living room from the living room,” Mark Saxon said.

They are hoping to move into a storefront by next summer, ideally in Arnold.

“A lot of it came from wanting to give back,” Crystal Saxon said. “We want to elevate not just ourselves but those around us.”

Mark Saxon suggested that they might find space more easily elsewhere, but this is contrary to their mission.

“We’d like to stay in Arnold,” he said. “It’s the whole basis of the business.”

Crystal, 30 and Mark, 35 have been married for ten years. They relocated to Arnold in 2012. They met online.

Mark was raised in Homestead and served for four years in Marine Corps. Crystal moved from Washington State to the area.

“It was just a fresh start,” she said. “He was my only friend at the time.”

Both had previously worked at the Veterans Administration. He was in housekeeping for 10+ years, and she was a health care technician for just a few months.

Mark was fired in March from his previous job as a property manager. Crystal is a hobbyist and crafter at home.

Elevate Arnold was their first venture into entrepreneurship.

“I was just a hobbyist who sold things here and there,” Crystal said.

Earlier this year, Mark attended an eight-week Opportunity Accelerator program for small-business owners at The Corner, Penn State’s entrepreneurial center in New Kensington. Mark says the course helped him focus more on business fundamentals and less on technical details.

They produce shirts from their home using direct-to garment printing. This uses a large inkjet printer to print images onto shirts. Although they offer a two week turnaround, their turn-around time takes about one week.

Mark Saxon, who started out with T-shirts said that they now have sweatshirts and hoodies in their Halloween line. He also mentioned temporary tattoos as well as magnets. They plan to expand their product line into window clings before the end of this year.

Mark Saxon explained that the plan was to collaborate with artists in order to create shirts for local businesses and to sell their own designs to individuals.

“Our motto that we went with is, ‘Inspiring others forward together,’ ” he said.

While smaller businesses might not be able to afford buying in the numbers other T-shirt companies require, the Saxons are able to handle small orders, even if it’s just one or two shirts. A single shirt is $20.

For Arnold, where Mark Saxon chairs the city’s redevelopment authority, they made four shirts for the city’s two code enforcement officers this summer.

George Hawdon, Councilman of the City, said that he would like officers to be able to identify themselves as city employees. Other minimum orders required them to order 10 or 12 shirts.

“I wanted the code officers to have some kind of distinguishing clothing, but I didn’t want it militarized like the police or bulky like the fire department,” Hawdon said. “They’re very nice, very high quality. He was able do a very small order for me. The bonus was he was a local business.”

Mark Saxon still works to support his family. He hopes Elevate Arnold becomes his full-time occupation.

“I want to build an empire to give to Audrey,” Crystal said.