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What is million shirt mom? And what is the number for? It's a journey of a million shirts touching a million different lives that started with one mom's life in rural Western Pennsylvania.

As a busy wife and the mother of four children with my own growing printing and promotional products business to run, it's hard to imagine that I had time to think twice about anything. But I couldn't rid myself of the nagging feeling that I was to be doing something "more".

When my uncle was diagnosed with lung cancer at age 54, the inadequacies of today's health care system hit home. While he and his wife both had good jobs with health insurance, many of his illness-related bills weren't covered creating a financial burden.

Six month's after my uncle's diagnosis, a catastrophic illness hit even closer to home: My 40-year-old husband Tom was diagnosed with kidney cancer. I am thankful that Tom had enough sick days to cover the three months he was off from work to have his cancer filled kidney removed. I kept wondering how people get through this if they don't have an income during this time?

In the midst of the turmoil caused by his illness, my mind kept returning to an idea I'd been having for years: I always thought I should come up with a t-shirt design, that would be fun, thought it should be something that could "catch-on". I consulted my kids and some friends, but never came up with anything....until now, and now I know why....the T-shirts needed to have a purpose. One sleepless night, I came up with the idea to consecutively number the T-shirts. Then, at 3 a.m. it came to me million shirt mom. I had a conversation with myself, "million shirt mom, that's a lot of T-shirts....but nothing else worked - thousand shirt mom - that's not enough and 100,000 shirt mom doesn't sound right." So, I knew it had to be million shirt mom. This will be a hard goal to reach. It may be a long journey, but I hope we can help a lot of people along the way.

I hope when someone is seen wearing the shirt, they are asked, "what is million shirt mom? And what is the number for?" Please tell them, "It's a shirt whose purpose is to help others, made by a mom who is on a journey to touch one million lives."

Here is a link to my original draft, with more details in my story.The Full Story