Printer hands over $300K cheque from sales of thousands of Humboldt Strong T-shirts

It's been a long, unexpected journey for Mike Yager.

This week, Yager handed over a cheque for $304,239.90 to the HumboldtStrong Community Foundation, a fund created to manage millions of dollars raised in memory of those killed in April's Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

For months, Yager and his two employees have been steadily churning out T-shirts imprinted with the phrase Humboldt Strong. So far, he's sold more than 12,000 shirts to buyers all around the world. Orders for the shirts have come from as far away as China, Japan, Germany and Russia.

And three months later, the orders have not stopped.

"People want them so badly," he said. "The Broncos actually asked us to quit back in April, a couple of times, and we told them, we can't. People want them so badly."

Like many people in town, Yager and his wife Shannon wanted to give something back after news came in that 16 people had been killed and 13 injured when the Broncos bus collided with a semi-trailer on the highway.

We didn't even put a call in for volunteers. People were coming in because they were seeing and hearing just how much work was going on.- Mike Yager, print shop owner

Days after the accident, he set up an online store to sell the T-shirts with the promise that $20 from every $25 shirt sold would go back to the affected families.

In the beginning, Yager says, he expected 100 orders from the area. Then the phone started ringing.

"We did not answer our phone for two weeks," he said. "For the first week, it just rang steady. It just rang and rang and rang. And it would stop and ring again."

Yager was on the verge of being overwhelmed when people from the community started volunteering to work in the print shop to churn out the shirts.

"It was just nuts," he said. "We didn't even put a call in for volunteers. People were coming in because they were seeing and hearing just how much work was going on."

Buyers "wanted to get a commemorative item that can wear with honour, that they can put on display," Yager said. "It was a way for them to give money where they knew the money was getting there."

The team says it appreciates Yager's contribution.

"It's not about the money, it's about what people are trying to do," said team vice-president Randy MacLean. "What Mike and Shannon did was just amazing."

Yager said he's begun work on a new online store for the team and preparing for next season.