About us

Long Version

Box 13 was started out of a love for three things: great designs, my local fitness community, and the calling to use what talents God gave me for something greater than myself.

All of which came together a little over four years ago at the Crossfit gym I was attending at the time, Crossfit Uniontown.

Jason and Amy Tungate, the owners of the gym, had decided to host a charity competition that would benefit the MDA, and asked a friend and me to come up with a design for the shirts.

We both had a love for graphic design and had often talked about starting an apparel business. This gave us the opportunity we were looking for to get our creative juices flowing.

The event was called the Muscle Up For Muscular Dystrophy, and was a huge success!

After some encouragement from Jason, I decided to launch Box 13 Apparel with the soul purpose of providing clean, positive apparel designs that would seek to motive and inspire.

I chose the name because Crossfit gyms are sometimes called boxes and because 13 is too often pigeonholed without reason as an unlucky number. A parallel I saw in the MDA community, as those diagnosed may sometimes be viewed as unlucky, but are in fact, some of the strongest among us, fighting and overcoming battles everyday that the average person will never even experience. They are the ones who possess true strength.

I created more designs, launched a website and began selling shirts at whatever Crossfit events I could find in the greater Pittsburgh area. What I found were dozens of fitness communities. Each of them like their own families. They all seemed to really love what we were doing and I loved that I got to be part of what they were doing as well, creating uplifting communities that focused on bettering one’s whole self, not just their fitness.

After four years of designing our own brand, creating custom apparel for different gyms, and selling at more and more events, the Muscle Up at Crossfit U-town is still my favorite. Each year it continues to grow and raise more money for muscular dystrophy research. And the best part is seeing how happy it makes two very special people. Lauren and Connor are close friends of Jason and Amy and we’re the reason they started the Muscle Up event in the first place. Both Lauren and Connor were diagnosed with Duchenne at a young age, yet they continue to inspire others with their strength and resilience. Lauren even does Crossfit workouts and absolutely crushes them!

The positivity and inspiration I see in them is what I hope to convey through Box 13.