Wearable, shareable support

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Alumni join fashionable social enterprise

Brenton Stacey/Sara Thompson
Public relations officer/Public relations assistant
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Two Avondale alumni have joined a new social enterprise that designs T-shirts to raise awareness of and money for not-for-profit organisations.

Arts and teaching student Brooke Tually designed O’Shirt’s first T-shirt.
Credit: Ashlee King.

Co-founder Ryan Williams describes 2010 graduates Kirsten Barton and Brittany Kent as key to the success of O’Shirt. Kirsten coordinates communication and Brittany design in her role as general manager. “Delivering the message is the most important thing,” says Ryan. “If we don’t deliver, we’re just a T-shirt manufacturer.”

O’Shirt supports a new not-for-profit organisation each fortnight. It coordinates the design of a T-shirt that communicates the organisation’s mission or vision and then sells a limited number of the shirts for $27 as part of a social media campaign. O’Shirt donates $7 from each sale to the organisation—and gives customers the opportunity to donate more on checkout.

“O’Shirt is like a bridge,” says Ryan’s friend and colleague Martin Van Rensburg, connecting those who want to make a difference with organisations that do. “It fills a void,” says Kirsten, who adds that she “struggles with not being able to just take off overseas to help others.”

O’Shirt’s first T-shirt supported Justice.Empowerment.Mission, Sonshine Sanctuary and Southlakes Women’s Refuge, all of which provide short-term accommodation for women and children. The designer: Avondale arts and teaching student Brooke Tually. “When we support projects, in a small way, we connect,” says Brooke. “So, I developed the idea of No Longer Strangers. I wanted the design to be subtle but still cause people to ask, ‘What’s your shirt about?’.”

Since supporting the women’s refuges in a campaign that began on April 15, O’Shirt has designed T-shirts for the Hope Foundation, the National Breast Cancer Foundation and School for Life.

Ryan, a Botswanan who received a scholarship from the government to study in Australia, would like O’Shirt to become self-sustaining. He is the founding director of the Botswana Orphan Project, which has built six orphanages—the first with Avondale student club One Mission—in the country. He describes helping the socially disadvantaged as providing “great satisfaction.” Of greater satisfaction: encouraging the rest of us to “care enough about our world issues to make a difference.”