The T-shirt Companies Raising Money for Australian Fire Relief

All over news headlines and social media, we’ve been hearing devastating updates about the bushfires happening in Australia. Numerous donation pages have been set up to help the people, animals and land affected, but in addition, various T-shirt companies are raising money for Australian fire relief.

If you’re unfamiliar with how severe the fires in Australia are, here's some background on what’s happening. From one BBC article:

At least 24 people have so far been killed—including three volunteer firefighters—and more than 6.3 million hectares (63,000 sq km or 15.6 million acres) of bush, forest and parks have been burned.

On top of this, it's estimated that nearly 1.25 billion animals have also died in the fires.

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One of the companies selling tees to raise money is Johnny Cupcakes, based in Boston. Kaya Stewart, store manager, shared with Boston CBS that, “For me seeing pictures of the devastation, and especially the impact that it’s had on animals and communities, it makes my heart break.”

Johnny Cupcakes' "Australia Strong" T-shirts are currently available for pre-order, with 100 percent of the proceeds going directly towards relief efforts in Australia. And, according to the CBS article, the company had raised more than $20,000 as of Tuesday, which is tremendous.

“It’s one of those things that we have to do,” said Stewart. “We see a problem, we can do something about it with our own little impact, so why not?”

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The “Australia Strong” T-shirts feature a kangaroo with boxing gloves and a chef’s hat with the Johnny Cupcakes signature logo (the cupcake with the two bones underneath). T-shirts are available for $39.99 and come in sizes small to 4XL. The presale will be going on through today, Jan. 9, with the shirts set to ship the week of Feb. 20.

Other apparel companies are doing similar things. The surf company Rusty has released a limited-edition T-shirt to benefit those affected by the Australian bushfires.

"What’s been happening has hit pretty close to home with our friends, family, loyal retailers and even some of our team riders all affected by this disaster," the company said in a press release. "Feeling pretty helpless over here in the west, we decided that we needed to help. Within 24 hours we went from an idea and some sketches, to some awesome local businesses helping out and we got this tee live online. We are also hoping to continue to support victims well into the aftermath of the fires."

And one story about a Florida Man actually ended happily, with the owner of T-shirt company Bananaman Clothing releasing a new T-shirt line and promising 20 percent of proceeds to relief efforts.

There are more companies popping up with ways to turn merchandise into disaster relief, and it's always good to see multiple industries from all over the world come together to help those in need—human and otherwise.