Love Your Melon is preparing to launch its new baseball hats, but the importance of community and charity remains the same for its two founders, sophomores Brian Keller and Zach Quinn.

Keller and Quinn decided to start producing baseball hats to give cancer patients a year-round source of comfort.

“In the winter, we wanted to give children something warm, exciting and made out of all-natural fibers to wear,” Keller said. “We want to continue to make a difference as the temperatures increase, and so we decided to create something that can be worn in the spring and summer months.”

This winter, Love Your Melon donated more than 750 stocking hats in four months. The baseball hats will be donated the same way in which the winter hats are: buy one hat, and one will be donated to a cancer patient or family member.

The new hats will be trucker-style, meaning that they will be 100 percent cotton in the front and acrylic mesh material in the back. This mesh back will allow the head to breathe in hot weather.

Love Your Melon’s newest release will feature the more subtle logo seen on their recently released L.A. edition beanie hats.

“The new logo looks vintage and fit the trends of what people are wearing these days,” Zeller said.

Junior Meaghan Hunt agreed that the new logo is more fashionable than the original and is a more colorful design.

“I like baseball caps more than the winter hats,” Hunt said. “They are something that can be worn during any season.”

Because they are snap backs, the Love Your Melon baseball hits will be one size fits all. Keller and Quinn estimated the hats would be complete and ready for purchase in approximately three weeks. The baseball hats will be comparable in price to their predecessors, $25 per hat.

Love Your Melon provides hats to cancer patients, as well as the family members, to create a sense of normalcy for the children.

“Initially the concept was to provide something warm for children to wear, but we realized that it’s so much more than that,” Quinn said. “These children that are going through chemotherapy treatment lose their hair, often resulting in a loss of confidence.”

Baseball hats aren’t the only way Keller and Quinn are giving back to their community. The two are also in the process of designating a portion of Love Your Melon as non-profit. Proceeds from this sector will benefit the Amplatz Children’s Hospital. The remainder of the business will still remain for-profit, to maintain a sustainable business.

Another new development for Love Your Melon is its new headquarters’ location. The company will soon move into an office in Schulze Hall on St. Thomas’ Minneapolis campus. Having a base in Schulze Hall, which houses the entrepreneurship department, will allow Keller and Quinn to maintain good connections with their professors, as well as mentor this semester’s new entrepreneurship 200 students.

The office will belong to Love Your Melon indefinitely, depending on the company’s need for the space, as well as its positive benefits on the community. Lisa Guyott, the Director of Marketing Communications for the Opus College of Business, said that other current and former St. Thomas students occupy what she calls incubators in Schulze Hall.

“They are fully equipped offices that we offer to students and alumni in the early stages of their start-ups,” Guyott said.

Keller and Quinn may still be in the beginning phase of their company, but they have already touched the lives of hundreds.

“Our hats are small gifts, but they make a difference,” Quinn said.

Maggie Whitacre can be reached at whit0467@stthomas.edu.