Meet the 2018 CAFA Fashion Impact Award Nominees: Shine The Light On

Eli Brown, the 24-year-old founder of Shine The Light On, a t-shirt company that spreads the word about mental health issues impacting youth via super earnest slogans on t-shirts, finds it a little bit ironic that he’s been nominated for a 2018 CAFA Fashion Impact Award. “I’m not a very fashionable person,” he laughs. “I wear sweatpants all day long.”

But the simple t-shirts he creates for are meant to be more than a style statement: they’re an attempt to create solidarity with people struggling with mental health issues to show they’re not alone. The messaging is subtle; statements like “Believe there is good in the world” and “Not weird, just limited edition” wouldn’t seem out of place on the merchandise sold in a yoga studio gift shop, but there’s a purpose to it. “We don’t want people to feel uncomfortable,” Brown says. “We want people to share their stories as they see fit.”

Brown’s commitment to creating a platform where people with mental health issues can find kinship stems from his own personal struggles with addiction. In a gutting TED-style lecture, Brown recounts how being sexually assaulted at age 14 led him to bury his feelings with drugs and alcohol. Eventually he spiralled into addiction and reached rock bottom at the age of 20, when he finally reached out to his family for help. Brown ended up at a treatment centre in Boulder, Colorado which allocated three hours each day for patients to work a job or do community service. Brown volunteered at a furniture store with an ancient heat transfer machine in the back, where he made his very first t-shirt. The message? “The things that make me different make me.”

“I wanted people to act as a billboard for social change,” says Brown of his choice to spread his message through clothes. Each of the slogans adorning Shine The Light come from an interview with someone who has a relevant story to tell. “My story is not unique,” he says. For each t-shirt, he sits down with someone, lets them tell their story, and then a statement forms organically. For example, the slogan, “7 Billion people, you are my favourite” came from an interview with a heroin addict who was finding the words to describe his addiction. “Out of all the things in the world, heroin was his number one favourite thing,” says Brown.

Shine The Light On tees are available at Honey in Toronto, The Latest Scoop in Vancouver and more locations across North America. The shirts not only help spread mental health awareness through advocacy, they also donate 10% percent of the profits of the sale from each shirt to a different charities, like Mindfulness Without Borders and Stella’s Place.

Since he’s beat addiction and started a CAFA-nominated clothing line, Brown now feels that his life has a renewed sense of purpose.

“I’ve always wanted to help people, I just didn’t know how I was going to make my impact,” he says. “I think I’ve found it.”