theohpioneer:

I really never post things like this on this blog… but if there are two things that I love, it’s good design and the outdoors, so I figured this was worth breaking rank for. Right now, the state of Colorado, where a few of my friends live, is on fire. There’s a gorgeous wilderness there that’s being destroyed, but more importantly, some good folks are losing their possessions.
I should preface this by saying that I believe that wildfires are a natural part of an ecosystem’s process. I have to believe that any disaster that happens in the world is part of the natural order of resetting things to their original factory settings. (Now, fires that are caused by negligence are a different story. I’ll differ to Smokey on that.) I’ve seen a forest that was burned by fire grow back stronger and healthier after a few years, and I believe this is true in our own lives. It’s only after we go through fire and lose some things that we become stronger and more determined than before… usually that comes in the form of a metaphorical fire, but on rare occasions, we are stripped of possessions that we don’t truly need by literal fire, and it’s only then that we see what’s truly important in life.

However, I want to be careful not to be insensitive towards the folks who have gone through hardship in Colorado. I sympathize completely with them, and I don’t want to sound cold by suggesting that what they’re going through is some kind of natural selection. Going through fire is ever easy. People have lost their homes and a lot of their possessions, and a lot of beautiful country is being destroyed. That brings me to why I’m writing this. I got an email last night from someone named Roxanne Hallisey, and she told me about an initiative called Wild Fire Tees, where designers got together and did what they could to help. They design a few tshirts, and they’re selling them to raise money to donate to a Colorado food bank and the Colorado Red Cross.

I don’t believe that buying a tshirt can make a wildfire slow its destruction or change its direction, and a forest fire doesn’t care how much awareness is spreading about it, but a little bit of cash can definitely help those who have lost everything and make the destruction a little less painful.

So, if you dig good design and want to help out some good folks in Colorado… check out Wild Fire Tees. They got a good thing going, help them out.