Clothes that do good...

Last year at work, I instituted what I called "Random Theme Days," in which I'd send an email on a super random day asking co-workers to dress a certain way. These days were incredibly sporadic and I tended to choose to do them when morale felt low in the building. It was a really easy way to instill a bit of camaraderie and pick up our vibration. Plus, it was always fun to see when students noticed that the majority of the staff was wearing plaid or had floral print on.

This year, our administration has gotten on board and we've tried to make these days occur more regularly. I got to make a list of all the themes and on "Graphic Tee Day," I realized that I had a really cool vehicle to instill some good into the community.

I chose to wear my "This Shirt Does Good" tee from Do Good Shop.

I like it because, aside from being fair trade and donating back to anti-human trafficking efforts, the message is clear-ish, but not so clear that you can totally understand it without having a conversation. I lost track of the number of staff members and students who asked me about this tee as the day progressed and loved the opportunity to talk to the kids, especially, about how clothing is produced, how some people work in horrendous conditions, and how some people have to surrender control of their lives because of the balance of power in the world. I like to think that it put things in perspective for at least a few of the people with whom I chatted.

I also tried to back this tee up with lots of other handmade and fair trade pieces to really drive home the point that you don't have to sacrifice style just because you're helping people!