Graduation is coming up quickly and we have a unique sentimental gift idea that re-purposes all those shirts from years of school and sports, clubs, trips and more.
Project Repat turns t-shirts into a quilt made from panels from the clothing, perfect for the grad. A great way to showcase and preserve all those fun memories!
I would like to have a quilt to re-purpose Charlie’s T Shirts from when he was a baby and also from the Sports team he was on as a Toddler and even his first Jersey his Cousin bought him.
Or I would look through the clothes I have left from Suzzane and have a quilt made for Charlie so he would always have Suzzane with him. I just wish I had a shirt of my mom and dads to add to the quilt I want to have designed.
The Project Repat story starts in Nairobi, Kenya, where Project Repat co-founder Ross Lohr was doing non-profit education work. After sitting in traffic for 2 hours, he discovered the cause of the jam: an overturned fruit and vegetable rickshaw pushed by a Kenyan man wearing a t-shirt that said “I Danced My Ass Off at Josh’s Bar Mitzvah;”
Amazed by all the incredible t-shirts that get sold off and sent overseas by non-profit and for-profit companies in America, we began working with Kenyan artisans to design new products out of castaway t-shirts, including bags, scarves, and re-fabricated t-shirts.
Those products were “repatriated” (or returned to the country of origin) back to the United States and sold to raise money for non-profits working in East Africa.
When trying to sell our upcycled products at markets in Boston, we quickly discovered the difference between a “good idea” and a real business: while potential customers liked the idea of a repatriated upcycled t-shirt bag, they didn’t like it enough to actually buy it.
What customers did ask for, time and time again, was an affordable t-shirt quilt. We had heard enough: instead of shipping goods all around the country, why not create fair wage jobs in the United States and create a product that has a lot of meaning for customers?
As they say, the rest is history. Rather than ‘repatriating’ t-shirts back to the United States, Project Repat creates a high quality, affordable t-shirt quilt with minimal carbon impact that ‘repatriates’ textile job back to the United States.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
