A distinctive clock and a familiar streetscape are emblazoned on T-shirts proclaiming "ECStrong" that are now on sale to aid victims of the July 30 flooding in historic Ellicott City.
Avery McClelland, a Howard County native and graphic artist, created the cheerful design that glorifies what people cherish most about the quaint town within days of witnessing horrifying videos of the flooding.
She will donate all proceeds from her project to the nonprofit Ellicott City Partnership, which represents businesses in the historic district.
McClelland, who grew up in Ellicott City, has been selling the shirts for $20 at the Howard County Fair and the Dancel Family YMCA. Shirts will be available again during a fundraiser at the YMCA on Montgomery Road from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Aug. 21.
With a goal of raising $10,000, she has also obtained a domain name, ecstrongshirts.com, and hopes to offer online sales by Sunday.
McClelland was on vacation in Texas with her husband, Scott, when she watched Main Street become a river of destruction.
"It kept hitting me in the head as I watched things get worse and worse that this is my hometown and I've got to do something," said the artist, 34, who moved to Hunt Valley in 2013.
She sketched the T-shirt design and posted it online Aug. 3, where it quickly drew 20,000 views, she said.
A number of online commenters immediately suggested she get her T-shirts printed at Nightmare Graphics; she heeded their advice and went to the 35,000-square-foot facility on Red Branch Road in Columbia.
Robert Andelman, company president, offered to sell her the shirts and print them at "just over cost," he said, and McClelland placed an order for 200. Just days later she tripled it to 600, and the first shirts were printed Tuesday.
"A lot of people are wanting to help Ellicott City by creating shirts, but we loved her design and gave her a low price and let her run with it," Andelman said of the product, which features a brick-red, white and black design on a light gray background.
The artist noted that she fixed the clock's hands on the shirt at 7:30 to signify July 30, the date when Main Street was pummeled by more than 6 inches of rain in two hours, triggering the flash flood from overflowing tributaries.
She added a sun with beaming rays to symbolize better days ahead for the historic town.
McClelland said taking on this project by herself has been a bit daunting, mostly because it has been tough to try to predict how many people might buy shirts and to figure out what sizes to preorder.
"I'm just a teacher on summer break, doing this on my own," she said the former special-education teacher, who will switch to teaching art at Bellows Spring Elementary and Cedar Lane schools on Aug. 29.
When someone from Ellicott City who is now living in England contacted her about buying a shirt, McClelland said she knew she was onto something.
"We all have pride in our hometown," she said. "My husband and I even had our first date at the Phoenix Emporium."
The Phoenix, a tavern and restaurant on the corner of Maryland Avenue at the base of Main Street, was among the businesses devastated by the flood.
Nightmare Graphics — which prints about a million T-shirts a year at a rate of 2,000 per hour and employs 42 workers — is lending that business a hand as well. Andelman said his company was looking for a way to touch the community and decided to reach out to Phoenix owner Mark Hemmis the day after the flood with an offer to make him 500 shirts for free.
Hemmis, who had started a gofundme page to help his 20 employees get back on their feet, was floored when he got the call. "How often does something like that happen? Never," he said.
Hemmis will use the funds raised through T-shirt sales and crowdfunding to help his employees with such things as health insurance and mortgage payments. Any remaining money will be used to rebuild the first floor of the Phoenix, where even the 25-foot-long wooden bar was uprooted and shifted 18 inches by rushing floodwaters.
"The only thing on the first floor that wasn't moved around was a 1,000-pound safe," he said. "But we will rebuild and reopen. I live 1.8 miles away in Catonsville, and I love the town and the people."
Andelman said he's glad to help, and regrets he can't offer free or reduced-cost shirts to every good cause.
"We've always looked at helping the community as part of the job," said Andelman, whose father, Sam Andelman, founded the company in 1982 in a basement in Oella. After he retired in 2014, Rob Andelman took the reins of the company, which has been operating at its current location since 2000.
"I've known since fifth grade that this was what I wanted to do," said Robert Andelman, who lives in Baltimore. The company also made T-shirts during the Baltimore riots in April 2015 to help the city raise funds for recovery efforts, he said.
Andelman says the use of the basic T-shirt as society's message board won't ever subside. McClelland sees two main reasons for T-shirts' popularity for espousing causes.
"They build pride and start a conversation," she said, "and that keeps community spirit alive."