2007 Summer

Giving the shirt on your back

Everyone has a story.

Mike Fretto’s story begins with a trip to New Orleans in 2005.

He went to tour areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and came away with an idea that spawned a unique non-profit that uses T-shirts to change lives. Now his story includes a recent trip to the Oscars to promote the idea (see sidebar).

The 2004 graduate saw with his own eyes the vast devastation from Katrina: homes destroyed, neighborhoods uprooted, lives changed. But what really moved him were the individuals who were affected, the people whose lives were changed.

While working with Flagler’s Intervarsity Club gutting houses in the hardest hit areas, Fretto discovered helping one person at a time felt much more tangible than trying to fight a more abstract cause. Stripping moldy drywall may have been a small act in the grand scheme, but it helped – one family at a time. And that became the driving principle of Rosa Loves.

The concept is simple. Rosa Loves is about helping people, one story at a time, but in a unique way – by designing and selling trendy T-shirts.

Formed in 2006 by Fretto, a graphic design major, and friend Chris Lewis, a software developer, Rosa Loves seeks to provide financial support to those in need by creating and selling limitededition T-shirts. Their goal is to offer a “new perspective of how clothing can serve a purpose other than outfitting.”

To do this, each shirt is designed for a particular story and only enough are made to cover a particular need. But Fretto is quick to point out that Rosa Loves is less about charity and more about awareness, faces and names. That’s why the stories are printed on the inside of the shirt, next to the heart.

Most of those stories are brought to Rosa Loves by friends of Fretto, Lewis, and business partners Johnpaul McLean and Erin Pate Lewis (‘04). Flagler alumni Jeremy Dean (‘02), Russell Brownley (‘03) and Ty Williams (‘07) have also contributed stories and designs to Rosa Loves, along with St. Augustine residents like Kelly Westropp and Eric Hires.

“The one thing I really like about our stories is that they’re connected with friends,” Fretto said.

Those stories have included a community leader in West Augustine who was in need of a new walker; a fisherman in Indonesia who, surprisingly, did not own a fishing boat; a family who lost their historic West Augustine home to a devastating fire; and an organization that goes beyond scholarships to help poor students in rural Mexico attend college.

Like many of the Rosa Loves stories, one of their more recent came from a friend: Brownley, while filming a documentary in South Africa for www.walkingonwater.com. The focus of Rosa’s “love” in this case is a group of young surfers from Mossel Bay, who Brownley says are like “fish in the water.”

“The irony here is that these kids are a product of South Africa, a country that has such a turbulent past,” Brownley said. “Many of them come from broken homes, sometimes with no mother or father, from communities that have been ravaged by racism, AIDS and drugs. But today, they were surfers, and for an instant, all that faded away.”

For this group, surfing is an escape – a way to forget about their problems and erase the race barrier.

“These people are living a life we, as upper-middle class, don’t understand,” Fretto said. “They’re locked in. Surfing is their way out.”

The goal of this story, and the corresponding T-shirt, is to help this group of young South Africans pay for surfboards, wet suits and other supplies.

Fretto says he hopes to see the idea grow beyond the stories they have already told.

“We have so many goals,” Fretto said. “We’re really just trying to use our talents and our gifts to do something tangible rather than dumping our abilities into something that is just going to fizzle out in the long run. T-shirts are just the beginning.” They hope to use the Internet to get more people involved with Rosa Loves by submitting their own ideas and creating similar projects.

“I’m not a business man, but I see a lot of changes in the business world,” Fretto said. “I really think people are starting to realize that there’s a lot of wealth, especially in this country and there’s a lot of ways to build and structure a business so it is mindful and productive to not only self profit, but really help the community the business is in, help the world and help the environment. We’re finding that out as we go.

“It’s tough, because we’re just doing this out of my living room,” he said. But he is quick to credit his friends and fellow Rosa Loves creators.

From an idea that began on a street in New Orleans in the wake of extreme tragedy, to a T-shirt company with a meaningful purpose, Fretto’s story is one of action.

“You can really make a huge difference for somebody, one-onone,” Fretto said. “We can do small things, even if it’s just listening to someone. I think that’s the whole idea behind Rosa Loves. Such a small thing is making a big difference, and everybody has a story.”

© 2007 Flagler Magazine.