Help Tornado Victims by Rebuilding the Town Red

Julie Pinomaki, her husband Dan Pfarr, and her three boys all live on the border of Golden Valley and North Minneapolis.   missed their home by just two blocks. Many of their friends weren't so lucky.

Dan coaches Little League, and he brought the team to a teammate's home that was . They spent hours clearing tree limbs, brush and debris.

"Driving home, one of the boys on the team said, 'This was the best day of my whole life. When are we going to do it again?'" Pfarr said.  "It made me think that there are a lot of people who want to make that kind of contribution."

"I knew we needed to capitalize on that feeling before the tornado was old news," Pinomaki said.  "But not everybody can take off work to clear brush."

On Monday and Tuesday last week, Pinomaki had been making sloppy joes for the volunteers spending all day working to clean up North Minneapolis. On Wednesday, a man told her it sounded like the chainsaws had stopped.  

"He was worried that people were going to forget about what happened and leave the north side to fend for itself," she recalled.

Driving back home from that lunch, she came up with an idea. 

"We could paint the town red," she says. "What better way to raise spirits than to get everyone wearing a message that says, 'We support you and we're all in this together?'"

Pinomaki called her friend, Tia Keobounpheng, an artist in North Minneapolis. Keobounpheng talked with her brother, a graphic designer, and by Wednesday afternoon, they had the idea for red T-shirts bearing a logo reading "Rebuild North Minneapolis." It's in the shape of a tornado/exclamation point (see photos).

Another friend made a call to Edwards Sales in Chaska, and the owner agreed to print T-shirts at cost.  The order was placed on Thursday afternoon, and Dan picked up hundreds of T-shirts the next day. 

Keobounpheng used the website for her jewelry-making business to sell the shirts online, and Pinomaki and Pfarr hosted a taco party Friday night to sell T-shirts. Many buyers were neighbors, though some were people they didn't even know.

"We sold 50 shirts just in those first few hours," Pinomaki said.  "We even had orders from Hawaii and Pennsylvania coming in.  And now we're already planning another printing of the shirts."

Each shirt costs $20, and the proceeds—$15 per shirt—go to the Minneapolis Foundation, which has agreed to match all donations through the end of the week.

"For anyone whose home was damaged, for all the people volunteering and for all of us who live nearby, we want to create a sea of red," Pinomaki said.  "Not just in person, but on Facebook, too."

You can "like" the "Rebuild North Minneapolis" Facebook page, and Pinomaki hopes people who buy T-shirts will change their profile pictures to show the shirt.

"We're going to show that just because you live across the border, you don't live in a bubble," she said.  "If you want your own community to be healthy, you have to take care of your neighbors."

Everyone involved with the T-shirt project is hoping their efforts keep gaining steam, but they're worried they might not be able to handle the demand.

Businesses and individuals looking to sponsor the next printing of T-shirts can email Pinomaki. You can also purchase a T-shirt of your own online.

"We've heard a lot of stories about looting and uninhabitable homes, but it's time we get the word out that there are a lot of people who care," Pinomaki said.  "You can be a good neighbor wherever you live and let people know that we're all in this for the long haul."