Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Monday, October 10, 2005

In one of the last shoots of the season, Bob Wells, our crew and I drove down to Burlington, NC to shoot a business we’ve been hearing about for years as a winner in the sustainability department: T.S. Designs. The company makes organic, earth-friendly T-shirts. The dyes are nontoxic and the organic cotton has a premium feel and look. Since wearing one of their T-shirts, I have to say, I’m hooked. In addition to the process, what impressed me about the place is how well the employees are treated. The company has taken a utilitarian building in an industrial park and created a nature hiking trail around it with native plantings and grasses; put in picnic tables; and even a kind of community garden. Everything that the employee growers don’t take home is left out in the break room. After a long day of shooting and driving and interviewing co-owner Eric Henry, I needed a lift. It wasn’t a carbonated beverage or a processed, sugared sweet. Biting into one of the last baby tomatoes of the season was a thrill. I polished off a few more before we loaded up and headed back to Mount Airy, inspired to spread the word on these wonderful ideas.