At only 8 years old, Kody Teet already possesses enough maturity and compassion that one could say plenty of adults should line up to hear her message. The Toledo, Ohio resident has become an anti-bullying crusader through her apparel-based take on a popular movie quote, issuing T-shirts that declare “You Can Sit With Us.”
The positive alteration takes its inspiration from 2004’s “Mean Girls,” through which Lacey Chabert’s character, Gwen, dismisses another student by uttering “you can’t sit with us.” In the last 14 years, bullying of the sort that the Paramount Pictures film tackles has not waned and might be even worse, thus prompting Kody to be an admirably knowledgeable rejecter of bullies’ barbs and antics.
Herself a victim of domineering youths, she teamed with her mother, Abby, to give the masses a garment that makes plain the value of inclusivity. With anti-bullying efforts gaining momentum each day due to sobering statistics on the amount of children who suffer from various forms of abuse, the altruistic schoolgirl is becoming an online sensation, and the T-shirts are proving a must-have reflection of acceptance.
“They want to wear my T-shirts because they want to make other people feel happy,” Kody told an Ohio news outlet as a reaction to the $24 top’s popularity.
Available in sizes ranging from a youth small to an adult XXL, the T-shirt features no fancy graphics or color schemes, as it simply lets its five-word message suffice as a call to action. In doing so, Kody and her mom have bonded over their irrepressible nod to compassion, with the latter telling the news station that her daughter’s “little eyes tear up” when inspecting Facebook-situated expressions of thanks for their diligence. Available through Kody’s Kloset, the nondescript anti-bullying T-shirt with the remarkable reminder of how a person’s company can brighten someone’s day is certainly in the running for our feel-good product of the year. With the holiday season—often a period of loneliness and despair for many—nearly upon us, perhaps Kody and her mom will be even busier taking orders for their creation.
