NEW SHIRTS COMING SOON

PREVIOUS SHIRTS - ARCHIVED FOREVER:

The Backstory

I have a thing for bears. Over the last decade, I've sponsored bears through various charities and given small monthly sums for years on end but it's time for something bigger because only by working hard at 'something bigger' will anything get changed. It's only when you start looking and seeing that you find this is the way of the world.

I figured that in an average year, I had - at best - handed over around £60 - £100. That's a shameful sum. I almost spent more than that on a single morning booking tickets for my daughter to go to the cinema with her friends.

I sat down with a coffee. What is a good sum then? £100? £1000? Both of those sounded like the kind of amounts I've actually seen in my pocket.

£3,500 on the other hand, would require work and no small amount of commitment. 

£3,500 sounds like the kind of money you can do something with. That's not a handful of nuts or the amount it costs to photocopy 100 sheets of paper. It's realistic money that you can take out into the world and do something that will make a difference.

Thus, the bear pot is being filled by the sale of the limited edition shirts you see above (or you will once I get my ass moving again) - the designs of which are created by friends in the tattoo industry or artists I know... anybody I think will make a great shirt that you would be proud to wear will be asked at some point believe me.

All profits will be piped into the Four Paws organisation who directly fund seven bear sanctuaries across Europe alongside of three big cat sanctuaries. I’ve looked long and hard at where money raised would be best spent and that’s as good as it gets as far I can see. I’ve got a real soft spot for the sanctuary that’s specifically for rescued dancing bears with nose damage in Belitsa, Bulgaria.

If you don't want a shirt but would like to throw some coins into the fund, there's a page here where you can do just that via World Animal Protection.

The thing to remember in all of this, is that bears do not look like this:

They look like this:

Thanks for reading down to the bottom. If you buy a shirt, send me a pic of you in it and I’ll share it around the place. Artists always like seeing their work out in the world and so do I.

INSTAGRAM: @bigbearrescue