Local Entrepreneur Promotes Free Speech, Builds Community

Fleetwood Mac was playing from inside the small warehouse where children ran around smiling and people sat in lawn chairs enjoying treats donated by Elegant Elephant Baking and cold drinks.

I don’t know what I was expecting at a free t-shirt printing event for the #NoKingsDay march, but it wasn’t much more than maybe waiting in a line somewhere. And it definitely wasn’t a neighborhood block party with people singing along with Christine Mcvie singing “Everywhere.” Yet that’s exactly what greeted me. Here was a backyard barbecue vibe where strangers visited like friends and everyone was smiling and chatting. The positive energy was instantly contagious. Strangers or not, we were all unified in one purpose.

Threadbare Print House invited people to bring their own cotton t-shirts for one of two signature prints. I immediately fell in love with their “We All Belong” Lady Liberty design (pictured above.)

Freedom isn’t proprietary. All of us do belong. So we are speaking up and speaking out for the poor and huddled masses, not just of history but of right now. “Yearning to breathe free” isn’t just 19th-century poetry. It’s 21st-century reality.

And when peaceful demonstrators exercising their free speech are being misrepresented by their media-obsessed president, optics matter. Threadbare found a way to make a positive, affirming message visually succinct. Well done, neighbors. Well done.

This local and independent silkscreening company has been offering free print events to the community since the first Women’s March in 2017. All anyone has to do is bring their own cotton t-shirt, and if they want to, visit with new neighbors and old friends.

Not only do they do this for free, the donations they accept aren’t for themselves, but for mission-driven NGOs. This year’s beneficiary? Cascadia Wildlands, “defending and restoring Cascadia’s wild ecosystems in the forests, in the courts, and in the streets” for almost thirty years. The folks at the donation table were so friendly and encouraged everyone to take stickers, temporary tattoos, and any flyers or brochures they wanted. They were smiling too.

When I asked founder and owner Amy Baker what made her decide to do offer this service and turn it into an event, she broke into a big smile.

“It brings the community out and people get to come together. I think right now people are looking for ways to do something and this is a small thing I can offer,” Baker also said how fun the event is for her staff, kids, people who bike over, and for folks who have lined up around the block for their free prints.

Baker sees how events like this create and keep conversations going “about community and why we do what we do.”

All of the staff members were outgoing and enthusiastic. When one of them handed a little girl her freshly printed t-shirt, she held it up to her chin and shrieked, “MOM! Look!”

“The young people here were only 12 when Trump was first in power,” Baker said of this impressive staff. “So I think it’s helping them to connect to the larger world.”

This local business didn’t just respond to their community’s struggles with the MAGA administration, they made a celebration out of free speech. And they made that celebration a fundraiser for the kind of NGO actively fighting MAGA policies that threaten this country’s wildlife and natural beauty.

We know that when we shop locally we’re voting with our wallets. But we also get to strengthen our community by sharing our collective values. In our modern busy lives we don’t have as many barn-raising opportunities that bonded societies in the past.

Look for local opportunities like this that create goodwill, make you smile, and motivate you to keep going in these difficult times.

Wearing matching t-shirts won’t save democracy. But they remind us that we’re not alone, that we belong to something bigger than ourselves despite our daily despair. In so many ways, we belong to each other. And we can have fun together while we stand up for everything we believe in.

And release the full and un-redacted Epstein files. We will not be distracted. We haven’t forgotten.