Tie-dye shirts may have been a fad in the ‘70s, but two girls have found a reason why this outdated fad should come back into style. During their spring break, 21-year-olds Lindsay Jernigan and Courtney Guy opted to travel to Namibia with a youth ministry group instead of the popular beach scene. Each day they visited the Community Hope School, promoting not only the importance of an academic education and leadership, but also an awareness of AIDS, a disease that has taken a toll on not just Namibian parents’ lives, but their children’s lives as well. “A lot of them, their parents have passed away, they’re seven years old, and have younger brother and sisters that they have to take care of and they live with their alien grandmother or grandmother,” Jernigan said. “And, to have to go through something like that at such a young age, I can’t even imagine being able to get through that.”

Because children often grow up without their parents, they are forced to take odd jobs instead of attending school and ultimately are deprived of developing a sense of leadership and a strong voice in their community. “Community Hope School tries to deter that,” Guy said.

Despite their tragic situation, Guy and Jernigan were moved by the children’s jovial, light-hearted spirit. It is their situation combined with the lack of government intervention that ultimately served as the inspiration to see these children succeed. Jernigan and Guy started their Dye-to-Tell campaign, raising money for the Community Hope School to support and educate these underprivileged children in Namibia.

Although they were directly impacted by their experience in Namibia, the idea to start tie-dying T-shirts in an effort to raise money for these kids did not come overnight. In fact, the idea came up on a random summer night. “It’s something we just love doing. When we went off to college, we got together with friends and would tie dye during the summer,” Guy said. Armed with tie-dye in hand and their motivation to help the kids in Namibia, Guy and Jernigan began their Dye-to-Tell campaign.

Jernigan and Guy are currently selling pre-tie-dyed shirts as well customized shirts. They plan to change the different styles of the tie-dye every four months to ensure that each person can find a style of shirt to their liking. Jernigan and Guy have recently created a Facebook group for their Dye-to-Tell campaign and have received positive feedback with 700 members already joining their group. They plan to launch their own website, www.dyetotell.com where people can order their own tie-dyed T-shirts. There will also be a link where donations will be graciously accepted.

Although the campaign is still in the works, Guy and Jernigan admit it is a learning process as far as balancing school, work and starting this organization. “There’s no amount I wouldn’t work for these kids,” Jernigan said. Despite this challenge, they are thankful of all the support they have received from their parents, friends and local businesses. “You can buy a tie-dye T-shirt anywhere, we know that…but, you can’t buy a tie-dye T-shirt that does what ours can do,” Jernigan said. “And that’s what’s so important to us.”

Guy and Jernigan will continue to raise money for the children in Namibia in hopes to improve their lives, but they also have hopes to create more schools throughout Africa and throughout the world. But for now, their ultimate goal is to bring help to these kids. “As much as it is trendy right now to help Africa, I don’t think a lot of people understand the gravity of the situation and how serious it really is,” Jernigan said. “The biggest thing is that it does well. Not necessarily for us, but for the kids.” And whatever they have to do to keep that going, that is what they are going to do.

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