It's been one week since we launched presales of Tsimshian artist Morgan Asoyuf's Every Child Matters t-shirt, and in that time we've sold more than 1,000 of them, resulting in roughly $11,000 in profits! 100% of that will be donated to the Orange Shirt Society and the BC Aboriginal Child Care Association.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has ordered a shirt. They will begin shipping on June 18th.
When we started selling these shirts, our goal was modest: sell 100 of them. When we saw an overwhelming response we blew well past that, and we're now hoping to sell 2,000.
But getting shirts onto people's backs isn't enough. As has been brought to light over the last week, we have a very long way to go in terms of reconciliation in this country, and as long as I head up Vancouver Is Awesome as its publisher we will remain committed to helping revitalize the relationships among Indigenous peoples and all Canadians. I first made this pledge in 2017 when we partnered with Reconciliation Canada as a sponsor of the Walk for Reconciliation, but collectively we have a lot more work to do.
This week we featured Morgan Asoyuf on the front page of our free community newspaper which goes out to 112,000 homes in Vancouver, and we also published a profile about her and her work. In it, she speaks about the meaning of the design on the t-shirt, the importance of educating people regarding Indigenous art forms and cultural values, and what she's working on next.
If you haven't yet bought an Every Child Matters t-shirt, please consider doing so. If you have, please help by sharing this link to Asoyuf's Every Child Matters t-shirt on social media and get the word out, and help us get to 2,000.
