It began as a simple tweet from a Canadian entrepreneur, meant to drum up some extra resources for the Ottawa Food Bank, but has wound up with a line of special edition products in collaboration with the Wu-Tang Clan, including a T-shirt that’s maybe the most covetable sartorial silver lining to come out of COVID-19.
Here’s the tweet that started it all, shipped out by Adam Miron, co-founder of Quebec-based cannabis brand Hexo Corp. Miron tagged a small group of influential folks he thought might help get the word out and, as you can see, it worked. Call it a triumph.
Thanks to Miron’s call for help and the Wu-Tang Clan’s subsequent promotion/donation, the tweet went viral and the Ottawa Food Bank was able to raise $170,000 in a day and go on to pull in over $280,000 in 48 hours. And it didn’t stop there.
Now, a new collection called A Better Tomorrow is building off the altruistic momentum with a collection of products made in collaboration with lifestyle brand and recording label, 36 Chambers.
“It’s insane how viral that tweet went. There were all these people replying on Twitter saying how they donated $36 or $20 or whatever, and that hit us pretty hard,” Mustafa Shaikh, who co-founded 36 Chambers with Wu-Tang's RZA in 2016, told Complex.
“Really it was just one small act of generosity that inspired all these other acts of generosity within the Ottawa community, and that inspired us to create the A Better Tomorrow collection to further help these different charities that are really providing mission-critical work in this unprecedented crisis.”
The collection features a vegan hand sanitizer called “Protect Ya Hands” made by Canadian brand Jusu, which, for every bottle sold, sees another one donated to Canadian homeless shelters; a meal from Pure Kitchen called the “Saga Continues Bowl,” which kicks all of its profits back to feeding the front-line healthcare professionals at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO); and, easily the most coppable of the bunch, a black T-shirt with “Ottawa” printed inside the Wu-Tang logo and the initiative’s origin story on the back.
Ottawa’s mayor has already got his and worn it to work. Looking good, Mr. Mayor.
The tees cost $40 a pop and 100 percent of the profits go to the Ottawa Food Bank. Cop yours right here and don’t wait too long, because the campaign is only slated to run for a month or so.
