Hurricane Sandy devastated much of the New Jersey coastline, destroying countless homes and leaving millions without power for days on end. Monmouth County, where I live, was hit particularly hard by the storm. The boardwalk that I stood on exactly one week earlier no longer existed, and the beach towns I frequented were in shambles. I returned to school after days of sitting in the dark with my family, feeling guilty that I could enjoy electricity while they were still without power. It was that very night that I came up with the idea to design a tee shirt that could be sold to benefit the recovery effort.

I wanted to get started as quickly as possible, so in a matter of a few hours, I came up with a design reading “Revive, Rebuild, Recover” and threw together a Facebook page to determine if people would actually be interested in purchasing the shirts. Overnight, my Facebook page received over two hundred “likes”, and countless supporters expressed interest in my idea. The following morning, I contacted a local printer in Mays Landing, who offered to print the shirts for simply the cost of materials. We decided to sell the shirts for fifteen dollars each, and donate all of the proceeds to the Red Cross’s disaster recovery effort.

            I enlisted the help of my roommate in order to accomplish this project, who eagerly took on the role of secretary, creating spreadsheets and charts to keep track of our finances. Within one week, we had sold 46 tee shirts. After placing and delivering our first order, we figured we had reached the end of our fundraiser. We had successfully raised five hundred dollars for the Red Cross, and we were extremely satisfied with our efforts. We didn’t realize just how wrong we were. In the following week, our sales doubled, as we sold almost a hundred more shirts and raised another thousand dollars. As it turns out, our first week was only the beginning of even greater things to come.

            To date, our shirt sale has brought in well over $2,000. I am truly shocked at how an idea that I came up with on a whim has grown into a truly successful fundraiser for those who could really use a helping hand. While sales have finally died down, our efforts have not gone unnoticed. We have received much praise and encouragement from the Office of Service Learning, who even suggested we form a club to continue selling shirts and generating new ways of aiding the disaster recovery effort! Even though it has been months since the hurricane, there is still a lot of work to be done and many people who can use our assistance. We aren’t sure what the future has in store for our fundraising efforts, but we won’t give up until our boardwalks are back, business is booming, and everyone can return to their homes along the shore.