Minnesota's NFL and Olympian apparel firm, WSI Sports, teams with LYM to make leisure wear. Proceeds to help cancer patients

Eagan-based WSI Sports maybe best known for outfitting ski Olympians and NFL players, but it's about to known for helping cancer patients stay warm.

WSI has partnered with Minneapolis-based Love Your Melon (LYM), a company that arranged for hats to be made for children battling cancer. Minnesota Knitting Mills made the hats for LYM. Now, LYM has asked WSI to manufacture a new line of "athleisure apparel." Part of LYM's proceeds from the new line will be donated to causes supporting cancer patients.

"WSI is proud to team up with Love Your Melon and create a new line of clothing that combines performance, fashion, and function and is made right here in Minnesota," said WSI Sports founder Joel Wiens in announcing the partnership Monday.

Love Your Melon was started in 2012 by two friends as part of an entrepreneurship class at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. Their mission? Improve the lives of children battling cancer by donating 45,000 hats to cancer-stricken children in America.

After completing that donation, Love Your Melon set out to donate $1 million to pediatric cancer research and provide immediate support to sick children and their families. It surpassed that goal, raising $2.5 million.

Now it's onto its next goal - teaming up with WSI, which bills itself as "the cold weather experts." WSI was founded in 1990 and manufactures high-performance warm-and-breathable clothing for Olympians, champion athletes and sports teams such as the Vikings, Dallas Cowboys, and New England Patriots.

WSI's "HEATR® technology" fabrics, which will be used to make Love Your Melon products, is a unique, moisture-activated fiber that lines cold weather gear and warms against the skin.