Samantha Bee, host of TBS’ “Full Frontal,” has announced that she will be moving the show’s charitable T-shirt production to Puerto Rico in an effort to boost small businesses in the hurricane-ravaged commonwealth.
When Bee and her team decided to film an hour-long special in Puerto Rico—which airs tomorrow, March 28—they wanted to go one step further than just drawing attention to the island and its struggles. After brainstorming ideas as to what should be done, they decided to make an actual economic impact and create jobs by moving T-shirt production to Puerto Rico.
In a phone call with Racked, Bee briefly explained the purpose of the initiative.
“It’s a great platform to put goodness back into the world as much as possible,” she said.
In making their decision, Bee and her team had months of observations on the response to Puerto Rico’s plight to embolden them.
“The hurricane, the damage, the tragedy, really resonated with us around here, and so we’ve never lost sight of what happened to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,” Bee explained. “The lack of care and the callousness with which the administration treated Puerto Rico has really haunted us, actually.”
Since the team had decided to film their special in Puerto Rico, they knew that they had to do something more than just use the island and its people as a backdrop. Rather, they needed to incorporate them, as well as leave something meaningful and lasting in their wake.
“It feels rude in a way to go to a place, bring your operation there, bring all these people there, film a special on an island, and leave nothing behind,” Bee told Racked. “We wanted to leave something behind.”
“Full Frontal” will work with two businesses in Puerto Rico—Transom for printing and Suxess Clothing for the design of its charitable T-shirts. While their offering features T-shirts for a number of charities, the collaborative effort in Puerto Rico will include a “Frontal Entero” T-shirt to commemorate the special and raise money through the Hispanic Federation to support hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
Bee isn’t settling for this one charitable act, however. She hopes to use her platform to encourage other late-night hosts to move production of charitable T-shirts to Puerto Rico as well. Tonight, she’ll begin this effort by appearing on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” in order to persuade the host to match her efforts.
