St. Petersburg resident Melody Proud, who has a passion to help underserved school children in the area, has come up with a novel way to get the whole community involved.
It started in 2021 with a unique series of “Live Love St Pete” t-shirts featuring an artistic view of the St Pete skyline that she sold donating 100% of the proceeds to provide resources for underserved area school kids. The project has grown from there.
During the first year of the non-profit, Live Love St Pete donated over $10,000 worth of supplies to kids at four area schools, and support The Kind Mouse, a St Pete food bank that Feeds local children with food insecurities. They provided children with school uniforms, underwear, school supplies, incentives for testing, special T-shirts to reward top scholars, several Christmas gifts and gift cards for children and families in need, special PDQ lunches, and breakfast food.
Because of the overwhelming success of the Live Love St Pete Brand they have continued to add merchandise like hats, cozies, coffee mugs, tumblers, reusable shopping bags, ornaments and bumper stickers. 100% of net proceeds from the sales of all Live Love St Pete merchandise goe directly toward providing resources to underserved school-age children in our community.
Live Love St. Pete’s next big market is Localtopia in Williams Park, downtown St. Petersburg, on February 12th from 10 am-5 pm. In addition to all the Live Love St Pete merchandise they will also be offering Valentines gift boxes featuring multiple options of Live Love St Pete merchandise in a fun free gift box and gift tag. Prices range from $48-$72. Perfect timing for Valentines Day and 100% of proceeds of all boxes sold will provide resources for underserved St Pete kids!!
Proud started the program after working with her church to provide Thanksgiving meals to homeless families of a South St. Petersburg Elementary school. “I learned that outside of academics there are so many things these children look to their school to provide as their school is also their community. Things like supplemental food, hygiene items, uniforms, underwear, and shoes. Often times school staff use their own money to help the children. My husband and I began providing some of these materials, as well as Christmas gifts and goal incentives, for a single school a few years ago, but there is so much need, we wanted to do more,” said Melody Proud, Founder of “Live Love St Pete”. “I wanted to create a specialty T-shirt that people would want to buy to help us support our mission,” added Proud. The shirts are available in six colors (teal, peachy-pink, iced blue, royal blue, black, and white) and come in sizes ranging from children to adult XXL. Shirts can be purchased online for $26 (which includes shipping) at LiveLoveStPete.org.
Live Love St Pete shirts and other merchandise are also available at supporting vendors 400 Beach Annex and The Merchant, Central & The Pier.
For more information or to purchase shirts online go to LiveLoveStPete.org.