I made it. 31 days of wearing ties, the entire month of December, to support Dressember and their efforts to fight human trafficking.
As of this writing, I’ve raised over $900 $1,002.20. Thank you!
You can donate here to add to that total.
Difficult to Hear
I said at the beginning that it’s dumb we’re still talking about human trafficking in 2021. Throughout this month I’ve earned an appreciation for just how difficult of a topic it is. Nobody wants to talk about modern day slavery.
But the good news is we can make a difference. Every donation to Dressember helps them and their partner organizations do awareness, prevention, intervention, and survivor support.
Here’s Morys, a trafficking survivor in a software engineering training program:
“I saw not just a lifeline, but an entire learning environment that would catapult me out of my situation and into the life I wanted for myself.”
–Morys
Dressember has all kinds of survivor stories like that.
Style Challenged
Dressing up for a month as part of a style challenge is the least I could do. I’m not going to lie—I got tired of the ties and I’m looking forward to wearing a hoodie tomorrow. But participating in something like this is an interesting way to engage a topic and sustain some focus. I even managed to keep it up on our vacation to Maine.
I also realized just how much my wardrobe has embraced the casual. I don’t own dress pants and only had four real dress shirts. I had to employ a number of questionable button downs, and let’s not talk about my lack of matching ties (really could have used the tiebrary).
But breaking out my skinny ties was fun, even if I’m the only one who appreciates them.
Let’s be honest: I do have a history of being stylistically challenged.
Dressember 2021
I don’t know if I’ll take part in this again, but it’s been a good experience for a good cause.
$900$1,000+ to help human trafficking victims and all I had to do was wear a tie? That’s a bargain.
Thanks to everyone who donated and spread the word. Thanks to Jon Cline for inspiring me.