#GoodCanvas: The Central Toronto Academy Students Raise Awareness For Orange Shirt Day and Teamed Up with the Good Tee!

"In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it." – Marianne Williamson

The Good Tee  is always on the lookout for good humans with power packed hearts, who like us believe in giving back and building stronger communities. We were super inspired when we found our young tribe at Central Toronto Academy High School students. These students are our next leaders and are deeply invested in supporting the indigenous communities.

On Orange Shirt Day we partnered with the students and provided them our super soft Fair Trade organic tees, so they could design and print on them.  The Students worked directly with First Nations Elder and Wisdom Keeper Phil Cote to learn about the 7 Grandfather Teachings and our connection to the land and planet - as well as cosmology.   Working alongside Phil Cote, together they printed, tie-dyed and created a t-shirt allowing  them to raise awareness for the indigenous culture as well as donate all the profits to The Native Canadian Centre!

 

 

What is the Orange Shirt Day ?

Orange shirt day began September  30th 2013, to  show support and honor the survivors from residential schools, and to acknowledge the horror that these schools are, where the students suffered physical and mental abuses just because they have a different language, or native traditions. This is an opportunity for Canadians to show support for all the victims that have been in residential schools, and to start a process of reconciliation .

 

The story behind the Orange Shirt comes from a former student from a residential school. In 1973, Phylis Webstad was on her way to a residential school near the Dog Creek reserve, where she lived. On the first day of class, she was wearing an orange shirt her grandmother had given her, but at the arrival she was stripped from all her clothes, including the orange shirt.

 

Today, the orange shirt has become the symbol of awareness for residential schools and everything their survivors went through. This past September 30th we celebrated and collaborated in an awesome and fun way with the students from the Central Toronto Academy, to help the indigenous community.

 

 

From Blank to Customized.
How The Magic Went Down...
It all started with the students learning about Corporate Social Responsibility with Adila Cokar, the founder of The Good Tee who  spoke to the kids about a very important topic, Adila spoke about the high rate of suicide among cotton farmers in India, and how at The Good Tee mission to establish a transparent manufacturing process and supply chain to give the best woking conditions possible for farmers and factory workers. After learning what her company stands for, and how it was made to help the planet and communities, the students felt that the t-shirts would be the perfect blank canvas for the orange shirt day project. The students inspired by all of this were super excited to team up, and us at The Good Tee we are always excited to collaborate with people that are passionate about helping out and delivering smiles! 

1. “ The Good Tee to the rescue!”

The Good Tee supplied the Central Toronto Academy students with our ethically made organic tees. The t-shirts were used as a blank canvas to create the messaging behind the cause. The goal was to generate money and  donate to The Native Canadian Centre in downtown Toronto.

 

2. From Blank To Orange.  Tie Dye Magic

The students spent the afternoon tye dying the t-shirts, and of course it was orange. Using the tie-dye resist method, each shirt was unique with a different design and colour combination.

 

 

3. Design The Artwork & Screen Print!

The art students worked with local indigenous artist Philip Cote to create designs using traditional indigenous style artwork as inspiration. Phillip explained the students how we are connected to the land and planet, and told them about the 7 Grandfather Teachings. Based on this and with his help, the students made some astonishing designs. Isn’t that incredible?

This is a long process and it needs a lot of care, but it’s worth every minute because the results were spectacular!

4. Marketing and  Sales

The results were beautiful. This called for a photoshoot! The photography students stepped up and captured  the process and results with the help of these enthusiastic and stylish models. These images were also used in social media so the message reaches a wider audience  and raise more awareness. 

The world needs heroes with initiatives like these, that help causes and give back to our communities. It’s the only way we will make this planet better for future generations.

 

What are you doing to raise awareness or help communities in need? Let us know in the comments below!