Last month I announced that our first year's donation would be going the Kids In The U.S. Fund of the Global Orphan Project. Of course, their commitment to "care for vulnerable children and prevent child abandonment" would be a worthy enough cause for anyone to get behind, but after learning how much more they do, I had to explore further. This is when I discovered GOEX, a t-shirt production company, fully owned by The Global Orphan Project. GOEX makes t-shirts from extremely soft American-made fabric. The purchase of each GOEX t-shirt creates living wage jobs in Haiti and the U.S.... that was enough to get me on board. Any cause that has a dual impact like that has my attention.
I've always had a passion for international development, and while I studied this in college, I frequently found myself defending my passion. People would ask me why I wanted to help people over-seas when there were plenty of people I could be helping in the United States. And while I never felt I needed to justify my choices to these close-minded individuals, I did feel challenged to look a little further into how I could do both. It should never be a choice, help someone in my country or help someone in another country? Vibrant Hope Boutique was founded on a commitment to do both.
So, with all that being said, let me explain a little more about why I fell in love with GOEX. EVERY t-shirt purchased employs skilled apparel makers who cut and sew premium fabric at an apparel manufacturing facility in Haiti AND each custom GOEX tee (like VHB's) also supports employees at their screen-printing and distribution center in the heart of Kansas City. After costs to produce premium apparel and provide living wage jobs, all GOEX profit, every bit of it, goes to fund projects set in motion by The Global Orphan Project. And boom, we just came full circle! As if that wasn't all cool enough, the sales woman I worked with was originally from my town here in northern Illinois. Yet, another example of how small this world truly is, and how far our reach really can be!
If you ask me, and I am a little biased, that is a lot of bang for your buck. $20 for a cute tee, with a wonderful message and that enables employees (in the U.S. and Haiti) to care for their own families through dignified work... a steal if you're asking me!
I want to share one more thing about these tees, then I’ll stop "talking" and let you get to shopping. The message on this tee was important to me. I thought back to my inspiration for starting this little business and recalled some words that I wrote about my experience in Haiti; "There it was, there was the hope." I was writing about the joy, the hard work and the determination I witnessed in the people of Haiti, knowing the kind of tragedy they had faced. I feel there is nothing braver than someone who chooses to believe again after they've faced hardship, adversity, and even tragedy. And in world, in an extremely confusing moment in society, or in what seems like a hopeless state of being, I want to share my deepest admiration for anyone who DARES to HOPE. To anyone who dares to challenge the norm, to anyone who dares to give a voice to anyone whose had theirs taken away, anyone who dares to believe in what can be a beautiful life, we hear you, I hear you, and you are not alone. Hope happens here, and we want to use this tee to inspire hope, to encourage hope, and to dare YOU to hope.
Dare to hope, then change the world.
Click here to purchase this tee.
