Artists, get out your sketch pads.
The Seward County Chamber and Development Partnership is inviting those with a flair for design, a creative spark and a little patriotic pride to submit design options for the Official 2025 Seward Fourth of July Celebration T-shirt.
The challenge will be to portray the 2025 celebration’s theme: “Preserving the Past for the Future,” and “Seward July 4, 2025” in an appealing way with three colors.
But event T-shirt aficionados should not be alarmed if they can’t find last year’s official shirt for reference because, technically, there was no official Seward 4th of July T-shirt in 2024. Or 2023. Or ever.
Which is something folks at the SCCDP are trying to change.
“We get requests quite a bit at the chamber for Seward-related swag,” SCCDP CEO and President Jonathan Jank said. “We have never done an official event T-shirt.”
He envisions strong sales at the 4th of July Celebration booth on the square on July 4.
While the artist with the winning design may bask in the glory of seeing the shirt on July 4th celebrators for years to come, Jank said the SCCDP is partnering with the Seward July 4th Celebration to create and market the shirts.
Proceeds from the sale of shirts will benefit the Seward Fourth of July Celebration, and Jank anticipates the chamber office having shirts available, too.
He has talked about festival-goers’ interest in T-shirts with his counterpart and friend Luke Virgil, director of economic development in Wayne, where The Wayne Chicken Show has grown out of a community arts festival in the 1980s, and each year generates a dated commemorative T-shirt.
Jank said he looks forward to locally sourcing the creative ideas for a T-shirt design.
He points to the special events around the 2025 opening of the World’s Largest Time Capsule on July 4 and the fact that Seward has already been designated Nebraska’s Official Fourth of July Celebration City for the U.S. Semiquincentennial event in 2026, which will honor the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“It is a good time to start, a good time to start a tradition,” Jank said.
Two great themes in back-to-back years. Both holidays falling on weekend days that draw good crowds.
Jank said it will be a great time to launch an official T-shirt with “40,000 of our closest friends.”
Designers must submit their ideas by May 23 and the winner will be announced at the July 4th Kickoff Celebration on May 28. Designs should be sent to Joanie Brecka at joanie@cultivatesewardcounty.com. Based on the submissions selected, some alteration may be required for printing.
