In February, Mychal’s received a $200,000 grant from the John Gogian Family Foundation, a longtime supporter. “It would be nice not to be dependent on the state in the future,” Lynch said. The operation is subsidized 50 percent by the state. Mychal’s runs an after-school program in Culver City as well. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Hawthorne, before moving in 2011 to a building on Rosecrans, also in Hawthorne. Proceeds from the print operation benefit the Learning Place, which started in a rented room at St. “The unemployment rate for people with developmental disabilities is 85 percent, which we find ridiculous,” said Page Sacks, Mychal’s director of development. It will celebrate its 20th anniversary in July. A goal of the latter is for the students to achieve a more independent life. Mychal’s Learning Place supports youth and young adults with developmental disabilities through its after-school program and adult day-program. Let them do their thing and they’ll do it.” “You just need to push them to succeed and believe in them. “Our students are capable of doing so much,” said Carrillo. Each printer can turn out 30 shirts in an hour.
The 2,000 T-shirts took Carrillo and Barnes three and a half weeks to print. Mychal’s worker Zachary Lynch, the founder’s son, at the embroidery machine. “We were able to prove we could not only do small orders, but big orders as well.”
“That order put us on the map,” Carrillo said. In 2019, an order came in for 2,000 T-shirts from Northrop Grumman. “Our goal is to continue hiring more students like him,” Carrillo said. “Right now I’m talking to you on the phone and James is cranking out orders,” Carrillo said.īarnes, 28, who is on the autism spectrum, was hired in 2020. Three additional students come in part-time and operate the machines. Surfaces to be printed on – whether a T-shirt, hat, or tote bag – are treated with a primer, then dried, then run through the machine.īesides Carrillo, the shop has one full-time employee, student James Barnes. The machines operate like huge inkjet printers. “If you would walk into our shop right now, you wouldn’t smell anything,” Carrillo said. “This is not a peel-and-stick print shop.”ĭirect-to-garment means no screenprinting, no chemicals. The shop has five new embroidery machines, three of them bought by another donor. When the building sold at the start of this year, the shop found its new spot in Redondo Beach.Ī realtor sought out the space and a Mychal’s donor bought the building, with the understanding that the Learning Place had two years to buy it. The business first set up in a donated space owned by a Mychal’s board member on North Oak Street in Inglewood.
Photo by Cheryl Kahnamoui/Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce. , and his daughter attend Mychal’s Print and Embroidery ribbon cutting March 3. Mychal’s Learning Place students Max Curtis and James Barnes, Boardmember Jim Alley, Chamber of Commerce representative Tonya McKenzie, founder Ed Lynch, City Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr. Lynch tapped Carrillo to lead the project. Within two weeks, Lynch ordered equipment, and staff and students soon were printing mugs themselves on a basic sublimation printer. The event offered coffee mugs printed on the spot with a person’s picture and a Lakers logo. It drew interest and Ed Lynch, founder and CEO of Mychal’s Learning Place, had an idea one night in 2017, after going to the ribbon-cutting for the Lakers training facility in El Segundo. It is managed by Jose Carrillo, who was the lead staff member for Mychal’s adult-day school when he started a Saturday Photoshop class for the students. The shop is a project of Mychal’s Learning Place, employing developmentally-disabled people for direct-to-garment printing, embroidery, packaging and quality control. Mychal’s Print and Embroidery moved to its new location at the corner of Artesia and Felton from Inglewood two months ago. The grand opening was March 3, but they’ve been pushing it for awhile. Mychal’s Learning Place creates a growing business in Redondo Beach, staffed by the developmentally disabled