To make money, many teens will take the conventional path and apply to work at a local boutique or a fast food restaurant. Instead, junior Jack Reese has created his own T-shirt company called Chocolate Lizard.

Reese created Chocolate Lizard in June 2010, at the end of his freshman year at CHS.

According to Reese, he started the business because a close family friend’s daughter died of cancer, which left the family in financial trouble. Reese continues to donate   10 percent of his sales to the family. 

What once began as a way to make his plain T-shirts more exciting soon came to be the beginning of a new business that opened many doors for Reese.

“I wanted to make my own tie-dye shirts,” Reese said. “I thought, what if I could sell these?”

After careful deliberation, Reese finally came up with what he thought to be the perfect name for his new T-shirt business, Chocolate Lizard.

Reese came up with the name because his mom’s maiden name is Gecko, which is similar to a lizard, and Reese’s last name is similar to the chocolate candy, Reese’s. Combining the two, he developed the name for his company.

Reese sells his clothing for around $15-$18 at the Potomac Village Farmers Market every Thursday, and offers items for both genders. Reese also uses some of the money he profits from the T-shirts to donate to the Wacky Wednesday cart, which provides carts that go around hospitals with fun toys that sick kids can play with to distract them from their sicknesses.

Though he does the majority of the work on his own, Reese has help from another CHS junior, Emille Beller, who helps Reese purely for enjoyment.

Reese hopes to expand his business by doing silk screen for sports teams and by selling shirts at the Mindfulness Center in Bethesda.