Joy Apparel was a socially conscious T-shirt project founded by Jeffery Woodrow in 2005. The project was built on more than 1500 hundred hand drawn portraits of real people from all over the world, people of all races, genders, ages, and abilities. When you buy a Joy t-shirt, you start by selecting a face of someone you don’t know from the website, followed by a style, size and colour of t-shirt. Every face comes printed over the heart and when you wear your Joy T-shirt, you are encouraged to think about that person and how your everyday actions can affect others and the world we live in. Each t-shirt is made in Canada and comes with a little bio card with the stranger’s name, location and passion in life. After you receive a shirt, you get a unique ID code that allows you to upload your own photo to the website, so your face can be drawn by hand and worn by others. With participants from Kenya, to Sweden, to Guatemala, Joy Apparel is about loving your neighbor and taking care of each other, because in some small way, we are all connected.
