Love Your Melon founder buys back Minnesota-born beanie brand

At a Twin Cities children’s hospital this summer, Zachary Quinn watched his two young kids hand out beanies and play with some of the resources funded by the company he built as a college student.

He remembered dressing up in superhero costumes to deliver the Love Your Melon beanies. Now he shows up as a dad.

Quinn, one of the co-founders of Love Your Melon, reacquired the brand in May and is relaunching it as LYM. The return coincides with Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.

“Seeing all these kids in the hospital and talking to the parents, I can understand them as a parent,” he said. “That’s why I’m doing this, it’s fulfilling in a way nothing else is.”

Quinn and Brian Keller started Love Your Melon in 2012 as students at the University of St. Thomas. From the beginning, the brand pledged to support children with cancer, eventually donating more than $10 million to pediatric cancer programs.

In 2022, Win Brands Group, a New York-based brand aggregator, bought the company. Quinn said at the time that Love Your Melon would benefit from the resources of a larger firm, with plans to expand in retail and boost its presence on Amazon.

But Quinn never felt done with the brand.

LYM’s relaunch comes with the return of the company’s “Buy One, Give One” model. For every beanie purchased, another is donated to a child battling cancer or their caregiving and support team.

“It’s tangible,” Quinn said. “When you put on a beanie, you know a kid out there got one.”

Two collections will be available at launch: the “essentials” line, marked with a new blue tag, and the “classics,” featuring the original leather patch.

And 15% from every accessory, add-on and warehouse sale will go toward family services and emotional support programs such as the Love Your Melon Family Resource Center at M Health Fairview Masonic Children’s Hospital.

LYM remains focused on its original mission while also being “built for today’s conscious consumers who want to look good while doing good,” according to a news release.

When Quinn bought Love Your Melon’s brand assets, almost everything had to be rebuilt, including the website, staffing and shipping partnerships. When the company posted on Instagram that it would be taking a “step back to reflect and re-imagine the future of Love Your Melon,” it was Quinn responding to comments.

“To see people’s organic responses, like wanting Love Your Melon to come back and supporting it, and they didn’t even know I bought the brand back, I was like, ‘OK, we’ve made the right decision,’” Quinn said.

Production also looks different this time. Love Your Melon’s primary Minnesota manufacturer, Minnesota Knitting Mills, closed last year.

Most beanies are now produced at a factory in Portland, Ore., with some leftover inventory coming from Canada and other suppliers. Finishing work, including leather patches made at Red Wing’s boot factories, is handled in Minnesota.

Since its founding, Love Your Melon has donated more than 270,000 hats. Quinn hopes to expand that impact to include those with other life-threatening conditions, as well as siblings and caregivers, which the company estimates could be as many as 2.5 million people.

The beanie-maker is also partnering with former cancer patients who connected with the brand during and after treatment.

Oskar Nord, who was diagnosed at 21 with Ewing sarcoma, a rare type of bone cancer, reached out to Quinn for advice on a fashion brand he planned to start: Anti Cancer Club. The company has donated more than $2,500 to cancer research since launching in December 2024.

That mentorship evolved, and Nord now works with LYM.

Quinn has also remained in touch with families he met along the way, and some are helping relaunch the brand by sharing their stories and participating in photo shoots.

Shepard Kelly, 16, said he doesn’t remember a lot about battling cancer because he was so young, but he does remember the events Love Your Melon hosted and the beanie photo shoots of him and his sister.