[ser-uhn-get-ee]
What is Serengetee?
Serengetee is a company whose mission is to change lives around the world by contributing to 32 different causes in Africa, Asia, Central and South and North America, Europe, and the South Pacific.
What is a serengetee?
The company sells a soft and cute pocket shirt, a serengetee. The pocket pattern is designed and created by artisans from all parts of the world. The company picks up the pocket from their various places, sews the pockets onto your choice of shirt, and sells them for you to wear. The pocket makers are given 5% back from your purchase.
They can look like this:
Or, they also come in a variety of style shirts, with whatever pattern of pocket you want. Check out all the choices
here.
What do you mean when you say the pockets are from "all parts of the world"?
Serengetee picks up their fabrics from 7 regions all over the world. You buy your shirt based off on what part of the world you would like to help, or by which cause you'd like to contribute to. Here is the breakdown of the countries you can choose from:
Africa
Camps Bay
Cape Town
Dar
Dundee
Ehtiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Madagascar
Senegal
South Africa
Tanzania
Asia
China
India
Indonesia
Japan
Nigeria
South Korea
Thailand
Zimbabwe
Australia
Australia
New Zealand
Central & South America
Guatemala
Europe
France
Poland
Italy
North America
Mexico
USA
South Pacific
Philippines
Solomon Islands
So where does that 5% go again?
It goes to charities! Each purchase from various pockets go to one of these organizations. You can choose what pocket based on the organization you want to support. Here is the breakdown (feel free to skim):
- Thanda - "supports future generations and communities in Africa by developing local, sustainable solutions to the issues of care for orphans and vulnerable children, HIV prevention, and poverty alleviation." Thanda takes care of orphans and vulnerable children by offering a school based in rural South Africa, where they employ local role models and use local school buildings to teach and support the kids. The kids in the program receive a meal each day and are offered "guidance, mentoring, skills development, and a way forward." Learn more here.
- Reef Check Worldwide - a non-profit organization dedicated to tropical coral reefs and California rocky reefs. They partner with community volunteers, government agencies, businesses, universities, and other non-profits to educate the public about reef ecosystems and the current crisis; create a global network of teams to monitor and report the status of the reefs; create sustainable solutions; and to promote local community action against damaging reefs worldwide. Learn more here.
- Japan Society: Japan Earthquake Relief Fund - a relief fund to aid those affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. They estimate it will take Japan five years to recover; as a result, Japan Society supports long term recovery and reconstruction. Learn more here.
- All Hands Volunteers - a non-profit organization that assists communities around the world, "with maximum impact and minimum bureaucracy." They strive to provide "immediate, effective, and sustainable support" to communities in need. Currently, they are working on cleaning up Superstorm Sandy, the Haiyan Typhoon, and the Colorado Floods. Learn more here.
- AHOPE For Children - provides a hospice to orphan children infected with HIV, ages 0-18. AHOPE stands for African HIV Orphans: Project Embrace. They focus on care and HIV treatment. Learn more here.
- Simply Smiles - is "dedicate to building bright futures while improving the daily lives of impoverished children." They are also another non-profit organization that claims to be impactful, sustainable, scalable, and successful. They see the individual in need and support them by solving their individual problems, such as providing food, shelter, medical care, education, jobs, and hope. Learn more here.
- The Dar Project- "100% of donations go directly to educational programs in Tanzania." Of the 1.3 million orphaned children in East Africa, the DAR project has raised over $10,000, tutored over 150 orphans, and sent some to college. They focus on funding college tuition for children who have a commitment to higher education. Learn more here.
- The Drew Gyorke Memorial Fund - A fund that honors a University of Arizona student who was killed in a car accident. The fund is to help photojournalism students achieve their dreams. Learn more here.
- Greeks for Kids - donates books, toys, supplies, and friendships to alleviate education and health challenges. It was founded by two college students from University of California, Santa Barbara. They donate to schools, hospitals, and shelters. Learn more here.
- Shining Hope for Communities - combats gender inequality and extreme poverty in urban slums by giving girls free tuition, free healthcare, free food, and free psychosocial services. It links girls' education to community-wide services, which increases the value of women and girls. They hope that the students will be able to support their families after they complete their education and find a way out of poverty. This organization obviously has a feminist flair as they try to increase the value of girls and women in Kibera, Africa. Learn more here.
- Living on One- a "production and social impact studio that creates films and educational videos to raise awareness and inspire action around extreme poverty." They starts with four university students who took camera and spent a summer in a rural Guatemalan village, where they lived on 1$/day. After the summer, they created an inspiring documentary. The donations go to creating films and education videos that aim to raise awareness and inspire action concerning extreme poverty. Learn more here.
- 5 Gyres - aims to discourage plastic pollution through "exploration, education, and action." They want to decrease the amount of plastic pollution in the world's oceans down to zero. They are researching and communicating how plastic pollution harms the world's oceans. They sail through each of the 5 subtropical gyres. They share what they find with the world, and they try to stop plastic pollution by endorsing different materials, better designed products, legislation, and consumer education. They also contribute to cleanup efforts, island debris removal, and mitigation. Learn more here.
- Footprint Free - prides itself "on using reforestation as our sole form of carbon offset." Basically, they plant trees that they buy through the Green Trees project along the Mississippi River Valley. Learn more here.
- 2 Seeds Network - an "umbrella organization incubating small, efficient, and effective agricultural development projects in Africa." Their teams address the food issue and income security issues of Africa. Learn more here.
- Kilu-ufi Hospital- a hospital that has three doctors and a dedicated staff in Malaita, Solomon Islands. They try to treat as many people as they can, but government-provided resources are small.
- Soles 4 Souls - fights poverty by collecting new and used shoes and clothes from basically anyone. Then they distribute their items through direct donations to the people in need, or by starting mico-enterprise programs that create jobs in poor communities. Learn more here.
- Generosity Water - an organization that provides clean water to developing countries. They sell water and donation 100% of the proceeds to a communities to build wells or otherwise provide clean water to the people. Learn more here.
- Leukemia & Lymphoma Society - the world's largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer. They want to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Jodgkin's disease, and myeloma while improving the quality of life of patients and their families. The funds go towards research around the world. Learn more here.
- Ghana Medical Help - provides medical aid to hospitals in northern regions of Rhana in order to save lives and increase the quality of healthcare. They believe that health is a basic human right, and they want to create a sustainable health care system that involves the community and posses extreme integrity. To do so, they create a list of the most needed primary care and equipment resources. Then they fund-raise the money to provide and deliver the medical necessities. They also provide medical training. Learn more here.
- Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund - serves wounded and injured United States military personnel. They are funded only with donations from the public, and they provide family support, disability support, and rehabilitation. Their current project is to extend the care at NICoE to more service members that suffer from TBI, PTS, and related illnesses. They want to build 9 centers across the country. Learn more here.
- Polish Gift of Life, Inc. - works with Polish children suffering from congenital heart defects. They raise funds for surgeries, equipment, and recovery for the children. So far, they have helped over 435 children receive open heart surgery. Learn more here.
- Feed my Starving Children - a Christian organization that is committed to feeding hungry children in body and spirit. They pack meals specifically made for malnourished children and they ship them to 70 countries around the world. Learn more here.
- Whole Planet Foundation - founded by Whole Foods Market. The provide grants to institutions across the world who then develop microenterprise loan programs, training, and other financial services to the self-employed poor. Basically, they want to help people become entrepreneurs. Learn more here.
- Zela Aid - pronounced shay-luh, as they kindly point out on their website. They promote self reliance in the villages of the highlands of Guatemala. They want people to break the povery city and to become healthy, education, and self reliant. They provide scholarships that eliminate health, environmental, and socio-economic barriers to going to school. Learn more here.
- GPL - a website that is totally in French, but I translated that they want to educate and train children and women. They promote the health of children and women and the family in general. They want to change policies about smoking, alcoholism, AIDS, and more. Learn more (if you read French) here.
- Esperanza International - they hope to transform individuals into a "person of love, compassion, respect for all other peoples and cultures and will intentionally act upon that transformation." They want to work across borders towards sustainable, dignified housing for everyone. Volunteers build homes and other projects in Tijuana. Learn more here.
They seem expensive upfront. Why should I get one?
I know, I know. I'm a poor college student and I have no money either and 30$ is literally my week's worth of groceries so why would I use it on a t-shirt?
Here are some reasons:
1) If you're reading this, that means you have some sort of access to the internet so I'm going to take a guess that you probably struggle with a lot of #firstworldproblems, like your phone is going to die before you finish reading this post and your charger is all the way over there by the couch. I am going to advise you to take a step back from those worries and think about people with #thirdworldproblems for a moment.
What if you didn't even have access to a grocery store and relied on your farm for food and you were in the middle of a huge drought? What if you had HIV from birth and needed medical attention but because of your failing farm, you didn't have the money to go to the doctor, let alone pay for the medication that treats HIV? What if you used an old bucket to wave in dirty water off the dirt road to drink after you ride your bike 3 miles home to your families? Maybe you don't care about yourself too much. So pretend that was your daughter, son, niece, nephew, uncle, best friend... Do you still struggle with getting up to charge your phone when your loved one is suffering from one (or more) of these problems?
2) I can get you a 15% off discount. Leave a comment and I will contact you. Or, if you don't want to, they have a sale going on where if you click on the elephant on the right, it will give you a 10% off discount code.
3) You can choose the charity. You have a passion for ex-military? Buy the shirt that has the pocket that will donate to that organization. You want to help cure cancer? Same deal, buy the shirt that corresponds with that organization. You can make a difference the organization you support!
5% doesn't sound like a lot.
I know it doesn't. If you buy the most expensive product, the Button Down, for 65$, you are only giving $3.25 to your selected charity. You can't always even buy a gallon of gas with that much. But, if you think on the optimistic side, that gallon of gas that you could give someone could help them reach a place potentially 25 miles away (assuming they don't have a 2014 car with excellent mileage).
I would like to tell you that it's okay if it's only $3.25! You are still thinking like a rich American. All of the donations add up quickly. If every person in the USA (313.9 million in 2012) bought one of these shirts, we would get up to $1,020,175,000 (which translates into one billion, twenty million, one hundred seventy-five thousand DOLLARS). You could help make a billionaire out of these donations.
If that still doesn't convince you, look at the current exchange rates of the US dollar:
$3.25 US dollar = 28.79 Botswana Pula
= 26.48 Argentine Peso
= 3.47 Australian Dollar
= 252.20 Bangladeshi Tak
= 6.48 Belize Dollar
=13146.25 Cambodian Riel
= 1818.80 Chilean Peso
= 20.16 Chinese Yuan
= 64.11 Ethiopian Birr
= 25.17 Guatemalan Que
= 38155.00 Indonesia Rupia
= 330.60 Japanese Yen
= 284.86 Kenyan Shilling
= 7826.00 Malagsy Ariay
= 34.68 Namibian Dollar
= 141.76 Philippine Peso
= 34.73 South African Rand
= 3355.14 South Korean Won
= 8537.75 Ugandan Shilling
Your donation could still go a long way in someone's life.
Where can I buy one or learn more?
