ASHWAUBENON, Wis. — Every few minutes a newly printed shirt comes off the heat press operated by Markey Bernardy.

She’s a marketing specialist at Elevate97 in Ashwaubenon, but for a few hours, her job title shifted to shirt marker.

Bernardy works on the shirts along with the other women at the branding and marketing business.

“We wanted to do something. We didn’t want to just sit around,” Bernardy said while making “I Stand With Ukraine” t-shirts. “We decided to get together, all the women of Elevate, and we’re making t-shirts.”

The initiative was launched in early March and sold more than 900 $20 t-shirts in a 10-day period.

“It’s just blew up. Seeing each order come in, seeing big orders, seeing people from across the country order this, it was just so cool,” Bernardy said. “You can really tell that everyone wants to help and it’s special that we can be part of it.”

Kristin Laursen is Elevate97’s director of marketing and communications.

Laursen said the effort is donating about $15,000 to the Urgent Action Fund for Women’s Human Rights, which aids women and others impacted by the war in Ukraine.

“We didn’t set out to sell a million t-shirts by any means, but we knew that with every t-shirt sale we would be able to send something that could help families in Ukraine with essential needs: food, water, emergency shelter,” she said. “All of the things the Urgent Action Fund are working to provide.”

The vision for the initiative: Help in any way they can, from Wisconsin.

“It’s hard when you can’t see an end in sight, so it never really feels like enough,” Laursen said. “But it feels great to be doing something.”

While she may never meet the people she’s helping in Ukraine, Bernardy wants them to know people care.

“There are good people out there, people concerned about them and there are people trying to make a difference,” she said.

Shirts can be purchased, here.