And a great gift when you want a little something to give out to your friends at holiday time!

Our high school RHAM volleyball team will be holding our first “Dig for the Cure” event on October 21 to help raise money and awareness for breast cancer.

Is your team holding a special event in October for the same reason?  Send us pictures of your team in pink, announce your event here, and share ideas for raising funds! We want your input!

Wrapped up in their work, Tessa Smolinski, 16, left, and her sister Laura, 14, team up in pre-wrap.com, an Internet business Tessa started when she was 12. The company sells colorful athletic wrap that many girls use to tie back their hair. Tessa has customers as far away as New Zealand. (RICK HARTFORD / HARTFORD COURANT)

The junior at RHAM-Hebron is a standout volleyball player who has been running her own business throughout her teenage years. Smolinski — with the help of her sister Laura, 14, and her parents — operates pre-wrap.com, which sells athletic wrap that is used by female athletes as a hair wrap.

When Tessa, 16, began her business, she says she was hoping to make about $20 a week. Instead, she has saved enough to offset some of her college tuition — her mother says she has enough for about a year at, say, UConn — and the business is growing.

The business has shipped to customers all over the world. The biggest order was for 10,000 rolls in one shipment to a retail chain.

“It’s a lot about the way we market it,” Tessa said.

The wrap is a soft, thin material designed for athletic trainers as a buffer between skin and sticky athletic tape. Somewhere along the line, preteen and teenage female athletes began using it as a hair wrap.

Tessa came home from soccer practice wearing a headband four years ago, and she asked her mother to find rolls.

Teresa searched stores and malls and finally found rolls on eBay, purchasing more than her daughter needed.

The Smolinskis are entrepreneurs — father Dick runs his own photography studio in Glastonbury and Teresa is a freelancer who provides technical art for text books — so they suggested Tessa sell some of the extra rolls at her next soccer practice. Tessa sold them all and came home with $75 of orders.

The business was born.

“I was definitely surprised,” Tessa said. “It just took off.”

Laura was immediately involved in monitoring color demands. Teresa and Dick explained to Tessa the basics of running a business — where to buy inventory, how much to charge for the product, how much to put back into the business and how much could be saved.

“I just thought, if I had this much trouble finding it and the girls at soccer practice wanted it this bad, there was something there,” Teresa said. “And we thought it was something she could make a little spending money on. I was thinking to the tune of allowance money, and she could learn how to run a business.”

They immediately learned that the business would be bigger than they anticipated. Within 30 minutes of their website going live, there was an order for 48 rolls of red pre-wrap. That wiped out the inventory of red, so there was a lesson.

Soon they were scouring vendors for various colors — they now stock 12 colors. Profits rose and were reinvested into the business as the website went global.

There are orders for overnight deliveries to teams across the country. Last week, orders were shipped to New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Meanwhile, Tessa’s volleyball season has started. She was All-Northwest Conference as RHAM won the CIAC Class M championship last year and hopes to play in college.

“With homework and sports, I do need help,” Tessa said. “So right now, I’ve hired my grandparents, my parents … our staff.”

The business earned Tessa a Future Leader Award from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. She plans to continue the business in college — she’s undecided on a college choice — while Laura runs the operation from home.

And Laura, who was in fourth grade when the business was born, has virtually grown up around rolls of pre-wrap. She recently ran a fundraiser through the pre-wrap website as a social studies community service project and sent care packages to soldiers in Iraq.

So beyond the profits from the business, the sisters have learned lessons through their entrepreneurial endeavor.

“I joke that I’m home schooling them in business,” Teresa said. “It was really important to me and to my husband that we teach the girls that you can do what you love to do.”

Tessa would seem a strong candidate for business school, but she’s considering a career as a speech therapist. But her business background will undoubtedly influence how she pursues that career.

“It would be nice having my own business in speech therapy,” Tessa said.

Visit the Fastpitch Festival during the week of August 25-31, 2008 for YOUR chance to WIN one of the great prize packs!  There is NO COST to enter.  Participation is simple.  Just click on one of the categories  right and leave a response.  That’s it!  Every* response you leave will gain you an entry into a prize drawing.  CLICK HERE to check it out.

Need a fundraiser for your sports team?  Take orders for pre-wrap and buy it by the case.  We keep it at our concession stand at home games and visiting teams love it!

Do you have any more tips for us?

Critters Who Care is an amazing organization whose mission is to lessen the pain of children who have suffered traumatic events in their young lives. Some of these children have been removed from their homes because of abuse, some children have a parent in hospice care or are in hospice care themselves and some have lost a young sibling to a tragic event.

Children are innocent and inexperienced in the harsh realities of life, so knowing someone in the world cares for them can make a huge difference in the way they view their lives. A simple stuffed animal may not seem like a big deal to adults but often it becomes the child’s prized possession in his or her world of fear or grief.

Many of us had regular childhoods where we were oblivious to all the bad things in the world. Unfortunately, many of the children we help live in a constant state of fear: fear of being abandoned when a parent dies, fear of dying themselves, or fear that their abuser will come back to hurt them.

Their actions are simple. They deliver soft and cuddly unstuffed animal skins to children who need a friend the most. Everything they need to stuff their animal with love is included, even a rainbow star that they can wish upon before putting it inside their animal. In the case of hospice situations, grief counselors are often involved helping the children process their grief as they work with the animals.

Please us help support this amazing cause!  Today a percentage of our sales are going to Critters Who Care!  Join us or get your own critter to donate here: Donate Now!

“Pre-wrap is cool for sure!” said 17-year-old soccer player and Century High School senior Amanda Joy Smith, sporting a pre-wrap headband.

So how did prosaic pre-wrap, created for sports medicine to serve as a soft, filmy barrier between skin and sticky athletic tape, attain cool-for-sure, fashion-statement status among teen and preteen female athletes?
Details are as gossamer as the product, but Teresa Smolinski of Glastonbury, Conn., and Raymond Rehbein of Rochester have a theory.

“I think it started when somebody dug into a sports medicine bag and found a substitute for a forgotten headband,” said Smolinski, the mother of 16-year-old entrepreneur Tessa Smolinski, who, four years ago, launched a pre-wrap e-business — pre-wrap.com.

“One girl one time probably tied her hair back with pre-wrap. Then more tried it and the trend grew,” said Rehbein, a salesman at Play It Again Sports.

Primeval pre-wrap came in two hues, tan and black. And then manufacturers began expanding their pre-wrap palettes. Lime-green debuted recently at pre-wrap.com, whose hottest seller is the Rainbow Special, one roll each of the dozen colors available.

Katie Frischmann doesn’t remember when pre-wrap didn’t come in colors. The Century High School senior works at Play It Again and takes part in hockey, soccer and lacrosse, and she and Amanda Joy are teammates on a Rochester Youth Soccer Association squad called The Chill.

Katie started using pre-wrap for fashion’s sake when she was in sixth or seventh grade. She demonstrated how she makes a pre-wrap headband. She measured a length of pre-wrap around her neck, tore the tape, knotted its ends, rolled it into a thin band and pulled it up on her head.

“I use it all the time,” she said.

More than mere chic, pre-wrap upholds rules as well as hair. Several sports forbid hard headbands that might cause injuries.

Some girls tie up their sleeves with pre-wrap, which also makes pretty necklaces and bracelets — often in team colors.

The AAU Girls 12 & Under National Championship brought miles more pre-wrap to already plenty pre-wrapped Rochester. Lauren Crisler, who came from Philadelphia to play in the tournament “has extensive knowledge of pre-wrap,” said her father, John Crisler. “We have quite an inventory of pre-wrap in every color available.”

“In AAU, teams have to wear the color of their uniforms,” said Lauren, whose yellow pre-wrap headband fit the requirement.

Some people twist two colors together.

“Pink and blue are the prettiest colors,” said Mayo High School senior Elizabeth Joyce, and teammate of Katie and Amanda Joy on the Chill.

“Absolutely no pink!” said Amanda Joy. Black is her pre-wrap favorite.

“I like pink and purple,” said Chill player Anna DiCecco, a senior at Lourdes High School.

Pre-wrap is daintier than duct tape but as versatile. Here are some pre-wrap applications:

• Used under skates, ski boots and other footwear, pre-wrap helps prevent blisters.

• Pre-wrap guards shins from shin guards.

• Pre-wrap holds up spaniels’ (and other breeds’) floppy ears.

• Wrapped around dogs’ paws, it helps keep dogs’ boots from slipping off.

• Fly tyers use pre-wrap to make colorful fishing lures.

• “Pre-wrap is a great wrap for tendinitis and Osgood-Schlatter disease,” said an AAU girls basketball coach. “Because of its flexibility, it’s better than many devices you can buy.”

1. Pre-wrap is THE Best (Girls love it even some guy haha but really it helps those w/ amazing hair =])
2. A Little Pre-wrap Can Fix Anything (
   It might be preventing the tape from pulling your hair out when you take it off or stopping the blood from gushing out of that open wound. Could it be preventing you from spreading an infection? Or, maybe its used for a simple task like keeping your hair out of your face; it could even be holding that perfectly rigged up contraption together. Perhaps it doesnt even serve a purpose at all, but by god it looks cool! No matter what your reason is, pre-wrap is by far one of the greatest inventions ever created…)
3. I Love Pre-Wrap
4. Pre-wrap is my life…can’t live without it ever! (Description: everyone in here has at least 2 rolls at home. there’s too many colors to count.
   you know exactly where to get it.
   if you play sports you have some.
   you have some with you just in case yours breaks.)
5. Pre-wrap is prolly the greatest invention ever…
6. Pre-wrap is the @#$%”
   Pre-wrap – YAY!!
   Head bands, shirt holders
   and well, pre-wrapping!!
7. Pre-wrap (or pro wrap or sports wrap) is GLORIOUS!
8. Pre-wrap will save the world someday.
9. 101 Uses for Pro-Wrap
10. i’m addicted to pre-wrap… but it isn’t my fault!!

Dr. Peter Lowenberg has designed a line of ice packs designed to fit the ice pack to your injury AND keep it there! Total Ice Therapy products use an ice bag with a screw top combined with a neoprene wrap to provide firm, consistent pressure to maximize healing. The principle behind this is that real ice decreases pain, swelling, and inflammation best. The unique design of these ice wraps makes for easy compliance of a recovery regime because they are easy to use, they stay in place, and you can always get ice anywhere you go.

The best method to treat any sports injury is ICE. Proven to be safe and effective at relieving pain and decreasing inflammation, ice therapy is an easy self-care technique for conditions of the joints and soft tissue (muscles, ligaments, tendons). It minimizes swelling and bleeding and is always accompanied by rest, compression and elevation. When applied, the athlete goes through the 4 phases of icing: cold, burning, aching, and numbness. These are all perfectly normal.

Cold therapy, also known as cryo-therapy, is most effective in the early or acute stage of inflammation, before range of motion exercises and rehabilitation. It works on the principle of heat exchange whereby the cooler object will absorb the heat from the warmer one, that being your body.

After an injury, surrounding blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients and take away waste products are damaged. Everything slows down and now blood and other fluids seep into the space around muscles, causing swelling, bruising, and pain. Applying ice lowers temperature of the damaged area; constricts or makes blood vessels smaller, thus reducing tissue damage; and slows down nerve impulses, which also decreases pain.

Never use heat right after an injury as it will have the opposite effect of ice and increase pain and swelling of an already damaged region.

When it comes to cooling devices, real ice does a better job than chemical or gel packs because it is able to draw 4 times the amount of heat out of tissue, since it lasts longer at an even temperature, giving a more effective treatment. Most chemical or 1-time-use packs quickly lose their ability to transfer heat and thus their effectiveness to reduce swelling.

Cold therapy should always be used as soon as possible after an injury occurs and at 15-20 minute intervals with a minimum of 1 hour off in-between. In order to maintain the results of the treatment it also should be used any time there is a flare-up.

REMEMBER: IF YOU HURT YOURSELF…YOU NEED TO ICE. Be sure to visit Total Ice Therapy to order your own! If you are an athletic trainer or run an athletic facility, these are great to have on hand!