Aidan received a shirt from Hich South Africa recently and he went straight for the one that said “be kind to animals” I lie, he wanted the one that said “my brother is a pitbull” but since we don’t have dogs, that didn’t make sense, and his reason of “people think Caleb is my brother and now they’ll think he is a pitbull didn’t sit well with me…so instead we went with something that fits (pun intended) my little vegetarian eco warrior to a T. ( I think T stands for t-shirt so that’s a double pun straight out the gate, sorry)

Hich is (#sharethebay) local and I LOVE the premise behind the business. They manufacture t-shirts for kids to show they care about animals and go a step further by donating a chunk of the proceeds to animal-focused charities.

It is a family business and the passion of mom Nicky and her adult daughters Lisa and Melissa are evident.

The idea was born from this animal loving family’s celebration of Melissa’s son’s first birthday last year.

In lieu of traditional gifts, guests were asked to bring a bag of dog food to donate to the local animal shelter for a #bekindtoanimals themed celebration at an animal farm. HICH South Africa was birthed shortly afterward and officially launched into the online market in December.

The reason behind HICH is quite simple. George Thorndike Angell once said, “I am sometimes asked, ‘Why do you spend so much of your time and money talking about kindness to animals when there is so much cruelty to men?’ I answer, ‘I am working at the roots”. This is exactly what HICH is all about! The brand aims to support local and national animal shelters as well as wildlife organisations. Individual support has also been given as HICH aims to help all animals in need, big or small.

“Teaching children to be kinder to animals today, is our only hope for a kinder world tomorrow”

The t-shirts themselves are great quality and super soft (this means it got Aidan’s seal of approval as he will NEVER choose style over comfort EVER)

I love the concept as I try to raise a socially conscious child but also he is only four and I’m not ready to drag him to protest marches (or myself if I’m honest)

Aidan is into recycling, saving water and asked us if he could be vegetarian when he was only two (he asked if I knew animals had to die to be meat and I was honest with him, after sobs he asked if it was okay that he didn’t want to eat animals and we have respected his wishes ever since).

I’d like to take credit for all of this but honestly, he just came like this, the only thing I can take credit for is not ridiculing his decisions and supporting him..the rest is all him.

I’ve been told by adult human beings to just lie to him about meat, but I refuse to. The vegetarian thing was hectic at first with him refusing to sit in the same room as people eating meat but now he can sit at the same table only moving away slightly, and while others raise their brows at me, I’m proud of him.  I Iet him come up with alternative uses for containers and things that would usually end up in the trash. I let him fill bottles with his bath water so he can use the grey water (link to fizz bombs to use with grey water) and I listen to his stories of building giant hotels where the world’s homeless people can live.

I don’t judge him when the money he was saving to buy the car guard an umbrella suddenly becomes money for jelly beans. I just help him be him and Hich allows me yet another opportunity to support my little boy and I’m 100% behind that.

Because Aidan has taught me that you are never too young or too old to give a damn

Here are some of the Hitch shirt options….go to their site and show some love