I partnered with Custom Ink, which is an amazing site that lets you design t-shirts and apparel and host a fundraiser to donate all of the proceeds to the charity of your choice. With their help I created this “SUSTAINABILITY IS SEXY” Tee. It’s $20 and I set all of the proceeds to go to Family-to-Family, a grassroots nonprofit 501(c)(3) hunger and poverty relief organization dedicated to providing food, personal hygiene products, kids literacy programs and other basic life essentials to American families struggling with the challenges of poverty.
Custom Ink is an easy website/tool to help raise funds and awareness for a cause, and get your message out. My Message: SUSTAINABILITY IS SEXY. My shirt is available in bunch of different styles, I’m wearing the unisex mens style on the site in a size XS, it’s super soft and American Apparel, but we have tanks and other styles available as well.
When I wear my shirt, I’m talking to my friends, but I’m screaming it to brands who everyday send me products buried in so much packaging that is trash. I can’t tell you how sad it makes me when garbage day comes and my trash bins are overflowing with wrappings from these packages. I get it, I’m blessed to receive so many mailers and I appreciate it but somewhere in my 10-years of blogging sending an absurd amount of landfill became trendy and it needs to stop. Listen, every blogger loves a present, bribe me with a gift, I won’t say no, but trash doesn’t count. If I can’t reuse it, I don’t want it. It’s not my personality to publicly shame brands so I’ll avoid naming names but a lot of you brands and PR agencies need to wake up because more and more editors, influencers and industry pros are speaking out, and I don’t know anyone that appreciates it. I would also like to shout out Beach House PR for their announcement that they will only be doing 100% recycled, eco-friendly mailers and boxes voice of excess packaging. Thank you for caring.
As someone who tries to live life with gratitude and seeing the good in everything, I’ve been a tough time lately. There’s so much waste and injustice in this world and we all need to do better. As individuals, as companies, we need to care about our carbon footprint, our planet, our people.
Family-to-Family is an incredible organization. They do so many hunger relief programs and am so impressed by their willingness to take on new projects and efforts to make the world a better place. After years of complaining about how much waste there was in the beauty industry, in 2014 I partnered with Family-to-Family to create ‘Share Your Beauty’, the first beauty donation program that collects new beauty and hygiene products in the NYC tri-state area and delivers them to shelters and teen centers. With the help of LeSportsac donating their past season bags (how sustainable is that?), we’ve helped donate over 115,000 beauty products that would have otherwise most likely been destroyed in a warehouse or thrown out. If you’d like to donate your unused beauty products all the info is HERE. If you’d like to donate to the cause or buy shirts, you can do so at customink.com/fundraising/sustainability-is-sexy
As much as I want to enjoy the finer things in life and like to see the world through my rose petal glasses, I want the world to change even more. I’m not going to pretend I’m the most sustainable person, because I’m not, but I’m working on it. And this isn’t an all or nothing proclamation. Taking small steps together, can change the world. I care about the environment, I care about immigrants, refugees, our homeless population and the fact that there’s enough food in the world for everyone and yet close to a billion people go to bed hungry every night.
So if you don’t recycle, recycle. If you can buy something from a second hand shop, do it. If you can rescue a dog instead of going to a pet shops or crying out loud puppy mills need to go. If you see your company doing something wasteful, speak up! Figure out a more green solution and present it.
I’m not trying to be a downer, but one of my big focus’ for the year ahead is to be more green and encourage others to do what they can. Future generations will thank us! The fact that in the past month I’ve been in NYC, Las Vegas, LA, and Boston and experienced over 100 degree weather in each city is a problem! Okay maybe not for Vegas since that’s the desert, but if you’re not afraid of Global Warming you should be. I’d like to be able to go outside when I’m retired.
For anyone looking to create any custom items, I can’t recommend Custom Ink enough, they made it so easy! They also have an amazing page of fundraiser shirts people have created in all categories from animal rescue to mental health, that’s a worthwhile peruse, it’s probably the most worthwhile thing you can get for $20: https://www.customink.com/fundraising
To buy my Sustainability is Sexy shirt or to create your own fundraiser, head to: customink.com
Thank you Custom Ink for partnering with me on this post and helping me make these shirts!