Kelsey's Closet giveaway #1: Rain Tees

To celebrate the release of the new updated and revised edition of Where Am I Wearing? I’m celebrating apparel companies that are making a difference. Each day for the next two weeks I’ll highlight a company and then giveaway an item of theirs at 7PM. To enter, leave a comment in that day’s blog post or on the corresponding Facebook post. Winner will be randomly selected. I’m adding each of these companies to my virtual Kelsey’s Closet.

Picture 21

Leave a comment to be entered to win a Rain Tee

If you hate rain forests and kids’ drawings, stop reading. Otherwise you’ll love Rain Tees.

Rain Tees donates school supplies to children living in endangered rainforests and asks them to document what they see. They draw things like the one below. Tree of Life Rain Tee

As described on the Rain Tees site…

Sadly, as shown in “Tree of Life” (right), drawn by 11-year-old
Mariela of Peru, we see a tree crying leaves and fish laying
dead in a stream due to oil drilling and agricultural pollution.

People in Amazon villages like Mariella’s often die of disease
as their food supplies become polluted and the endangered
wildlife around them slowly die off.

Other children in countries such as Ecuador, Brazil, and
Costa Rica show us similar scenarios in their drawings.

No, Debbie Downer, I don’t think you can get that picture on a T-shirt to wear to your nephew’s birthday party.

“Happy Birthday Stevie!”

“Aunt Debbie, what’s on your shirt?”

“Oh just the tree of life weeping leaves at all of the animals that will die because your mother isn’t recycling the paper birthday plates.”

But seriously, images like this are what Rain Tees seeks to eliminate. How depressing is that given a blank piece of paper Mariella in Peru drew that?

Typically a child draws a picture of something like a toucan. Rain Tees takes that picture and puts it on an organic T-shirt using environmentally friendly inks. A family that lives just outside a rainforest in Peru makes the shirts. (correction: Rain Tees were originally made in Peru but are now made in USA.) The child’s name and where they are from are also printed on the Made in USA shirt. For every shirt sold, Rain Tees plants a new tree in the rainforest.

How’s that for a shirt with a story? Pretty awesome!

Beth Doane, the founder of Rain Tees, has been mobilizing kids to fight for rainforests since grade school. When she was eight, she convinced her classmates to donate their lunch money to save the Amazon rainforest. That got her sent to the principal’s office. Now she travels the world giving, educating, and connecting.

Her stories from the front lines of the Ecuador/Chevron lawsuit are heartbreaking and inspiring. I’ve known Beth for a few years and she constantly inspires me. Watch her recent TEDx talk below and be inspired too.

Leave a comment to be entered to win a Rain Tee

 
22 comments
Barb Pierce-Cruise says:

Kelsey, I love your site and keeping up with your blog. Just ordered the new edition of the book for my social work class. Thanks for all you do.

Sarah Royer says:

How inspiring is Beth Doane?!Love what shes doing!!

Celina says:

Clean is a requirement? You hanevt worked at home long enough! I finally have enough suits to get me through a week of work just to start over again now that I work in the real world again (shopping was fun, uncomfortable shoes & hose not so fun).

JamesM says:

I’m amazed at the creativity of people who are able to take such global problems and give them a local connection or flavor. This helps bring some awareness that the world is not as big as it seems and we are all interconnected. Thanks for finding great resources, Kelsey!

Marissa says:

This is awesome! Getting kids to use their creativity, spreading the word about what’s going on in these countries, AND making really awesome t-shirts? What could be better!?

Grace says:

Love to see young kids being involved in advocacy. That’s true education

Sabrina Mallard says:

What an awesome and inspiring project! It would be such a treat to receive a tee and show it off to raise awareness 🙂

Sara L says:

very cool. thanks for the chance to win!

Great idea! Thanks for hosting the contest. Best of luck to all.

Jen Kent says:

This is such a great idea! Love it!

Mary Rausch says:

Love the subtitle on the website: Planting Trees with Tees. 🙂 The designs are gorgeous!

Jen Forbus says:

What a wonderful partnership!

Sacha says:

I want a Rain Tee!

Kathy G says:

I love reading all the blogs you write and I am looking forward to Where Am I Eating? I am pushing for Indiana University to begin teaching with Where Am I Wearing? as part of the curriculum. Winning a shirt would be nice, but I am considering buying one or some anyway- Awesome concept! Thanks for helping us become more aware of companies like this. They’re great! Keep up the good work! 🙂

jsemp says:

Kelsy’s Closet will be a great supplement to your book. Nice idea.

meganpwrites says:

Great idea, Kelsey! Thank you for introducing us to such the incredible companies:-)

Matt Barhorst says:

You didn’t specify if the shirt arrives wet.

An nguyen says:

Awesome

Kelsey says:

Thanks all for entering, but you didn’t win. The Rain Tee went to a Facebook commenter. Another fabulous contest tomorrow. I hope to see you enter again.

st patricks says:

Thanks , I’ve recently been looking for info approximately this subject
for a long time and yours is the best I have discovered so
far. But, what about the conclusion? Are you positive about the source?

It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this brilliant blog!
I guess for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.

I look forward to new updates and will talk about this blog
with my Facebook group. Chat soon!

sandiego says:

I’d like to thank you for the efforts you’ve put in penning this website.
I am hoping to see the same high-grade content from you in the future as
well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get
my very own blog now 😉

Let your voice be heard!

Leave a Reply to Matt Barhorst Cancel reply