Grant Ainsworth’s journey to this year’s Public Market began in a classroom at the University of Portland.
Ainsworth, who grew up in Juneau, was taking an environmental studies class as a freshman and it struck him how harmful the clothing industry is to the environment. He wanted to take action.
“I just decided to do something about it,” Ainsworth said, “make a real change instead of just tweeting about it.”
Now a junior, Ainsworth has launched his own business called Branching Threads, something the Juneau-Douglas High School graduate calls “bold, yet so simple” on the business’ website. He sells sustainable, 100 percent bamboo shirts and for every dollar of sales, he plants a tree through the nonprofit Trees for the Future. A $30 shirt, for example, plants 30 trees. Trees for the Future donates trees to impoverished farmers around the world to help both the environment and the farmers.
So far, Branching Threads has helped to plant around 7,000 trees, and interest is quickly picking up. Ainsworth and his friends helping him run the business launched a website at the beginning of June and have been active in marketing their products on social media.
The shirts, ranging from T-shirts to sweatshirts, carry Southeast Alaska-inspired designs including the Mendenhall Glacier, the Chilkat Mountains and a Sitka spruce. They sell stickers as well, also planting trees for every dollar spent on a sticker.
Even just looking around campus, Ainsworth has noticed the growing popularity of the shirts and the brand.
“It’s grown quite a bit,” Ainsworth said. “What’s nice about clothing is that you can sell to a lot of friends for a while, which is pretty nice, but we’ve also started to make sales to people I don’t know. I’ve also seen stickers around campus, and on people’s laptops who I don’t know, which has been really cool.”
Ainsworth, 20, has been going to the annual Public Market, which runs from Friday through Saturday every Thanksgiving weekend, for years and thought it would be a perfect setting to get more exposure for Branching Threads. This will be Ainsworth’s first appearance at the market, and event organizer Peter Metcalfe said Ainsworth is the youngest newcomer this year.
Vendors will be set up both at Centennial Hall and the Juneau Arts and Culture Center (JACC), and Ainsworth will be set up at the JACC. Ainsworth said he’s sold his products at pop-up shops and similar markets in Portland, so he feels confident that he’ll do well at the Public Market too.
He hopes that after this weekend, he’ll see stickers around Juneau like he does on campus.
“I didn’t know how hard it would be or how long it would last,” Ainsworth said, “but it’s been a fun journey.”
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or alex.mccarthy@juneauempire.com.
