T-shirt #284: #ThisShirt

This ThisShirt was donated from Busted Tees (http://www.bustedtees.com, http://www.bustedtees.com/thisshirt) and is a reference to the Twitter phenomenon. If you don’t know (I had to look it up), the # is a shorthand way of tagging something you “tweet”. For example, many of my blogs would be tagged #BostonBruins, #StarWars, #BostonCollege, #Cancer, #BestFamily. So, what would a tag of “this shirt” mean to my blog in general?

In one word, help. And no, not a cry for help as some of my “funny” friends might suggest. Help is the reason I started this blog in the first place, and help is the reason that I have been able to reach shirt #284.

First, as I have mentioned before (and never get tired of mentioning), my great friend Glen helped me by giving me this MacBook I am using right now. He could have easily sold it to me for a “friend price” or made more money selling it to someone else, but he didn’t. It was a selfless gesture that one would even feel lucky if a family member had done it. It really blew my mind.

I knew I had to pay it forward somehow, and my idea to help people came to me last Christmas. My wonderful cousin Katie gave me a shirt for Christmas (http://davestshirts.blogspot.com/2010/01/t-shirt-11-mcgrath-alaska.html) and made reference to the ½ joke goal I had of owning 365 shirts so I could wear a different one every day. Juxtaposed with my new free computer, I realized it was a silly goal to have and thought it would serve the world better if I did something useful with my shirts. I decided to donate them all (keeping some priceless ones – the world is not ready to see

me shirtless 24-7…yet) or sell them and give that money to charity (Hope Lodge being the #1 benefactor). My awesome sister Megan suggested that I blog about each shirt before I gave them away, and this website was born.

Help with the computer and idea got Dave’s Daily T-shirts off the ground, and help is what has kept it going. To date, 18 websites and businesses have donated shirts to me. All I had to do was tell them about my blog and ask. So, thank you 80’s Tees, Ben and Jerry’s, Chowdaheadz, Coney Island Hot Dogs, Crazy Dave’s T-shirts, Etnies, Foul Mouth, Hot Topic, Last Exit to Nowhere, Letter from John, Life Is Good, Nerdy Shirts, Sam La Grassa’s, Snorg Tees, The Onion, Threadless, Topatoca, and Busted Tees for today’s shirt…your generosity has let me keep the blog going and has given me more faith in people helping someone they don’t even know. It has really amazed me.

Although not as surprising as the help I have gotten from websites, the help I have received from family and friends has been just amazing. My brothers and sisters, parents, nephews and niece, aunts, cousins, friends, Hope Lodge guests, Hope Lodge volunteers, Facebook friends, and even brothers of Facebook friends have all helped me get closer to my year long t-shirt-a-day goal.

It is because I have so many helpful people in my life that the decision to give away all my shirts (and eventually just about all of my possessions) was a very easy one. Money and things just don’t matter. All of these shirts symbolize all of the help I have gotten and reinforce my motto that the only thing in life that really matters is the people you have in yours. I try to remember this any time I’m having a bad Crohn’s day, when unexpected bills pile up and my bank account is low, or if I run into an “unpleasant” person somewhere in public. I am surrounded by a loving family and friends who make me laugh all the time, and that is the reason why giving up all my “stuff” was such a simple decision.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me through everything up to and including this blog. I imagine a world where people help each other like you have all helped me. And I’m doing what I can to get the world closer to the image that I have…