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Corporal4Life: Apparel for the proud

Corporal4Life: Apparel for the proud

It began with a night of booze and hanging out with an old friend, another Afghan vet with whom I served in Kandahar in '06.  We got to talking about pride in being a Canadian soldier/veteran and how we Canadians don't really show our pride in service even though our American neighbours have countless veteran shirts,hoodies,hats,flags, etc. Maybe it was the booze, maybe it was the memories of those years in uniform proudly sporting the Maple Leaf on my left shoulder that got me to thinking...where are all the Canadian Veteran shirts, hats, or anything that shows I'm proud? The very next day I got to work designing the very first Corporal4Life t-shirt, a black tee with the maple leaf, crossed C-7 rifles, and a set of Canadian dogtags front and center. Now being a veteran and a civilian firefighter, PTSD is a reality for many soldiers,emergency services personnel, and anyone who has been through a traumatic event.  I decided that selling shirts simply to show pride in service or pride in our forces wasn't enough, I thought why not take a portion of every sale and donate it to a good cause? I contacted 3 Canadian charities with my idea, none of which seemed to really want or need my piddly donations, which was a bummer considering I wanted Corporal4life to launch its first products ASAP.  I waited, continued contacting charities (mostly ones which benefited vets and families of vets) to no avail. Then one day, as if life were giving me a sign, while at work a pickup truck with fire, EMS, and military decals pulls into the parking lot. As the truck pulls up I notice on the hood the names of 158 Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan. It was a beautiful yet somber reminder of what our men and women in uniform do for our country and I needed to know who this big, bearded owner of said pick-up truck was. It turned out he was visiting Windsor to promote his charity PTSD Battlecry and the cross-Canada walk he was going to embark on to raise awareness and money for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. After finding out why he was visiting our firehall, I decided if I was going to donate anything to anyone, it was going to be his charity.  Since launching C4L Apparel in August of 2015, though sales are slow and not many, we have been able to donate just over $500 to PTSD Battlecry, and hoping to grow and donate much more in the future. The people who have purchased our shirts seem to like them, people on the street will often ask where I got the shirt from (yes I wear my own designs, what of it?), and I am extremely humbled to know that people like what I do and actually wear something I designed...not to mention the fact that we are able to donate something to a great cause.  If you  like our products then check out www.corporal4life.com, and if you want to know more about PTSD Battlecry check out www.ptsdbattlecry.ca...Thanks for reading!

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