Rochester man proves T-shirts are not trivial

If you’re looking for T-shirt, John Sievers, of Rochester, Minn., can probably set you up.

Tuesday marks the 365th consecutive day that Sievers has worn a different T-shirt, capping his year-long effort to draw attention to his community.

He started his project at Rochesterfest last year with the idea of wearing some of his different shirts to promote creativity and artists in the city. The organizations and businesses would post the picture on their Facebook page.

“Somewhere in those first two weeks, I made the brilliant mistake of adding a clause to my daily post saying I’d keep wearing a shirt every day until I ran out. I certainly didn’t expect to be wearing shirts for 365 days, but sometimes ideas manifest in ways we can never foresee,” he wrote in the Rochester Post-Bulletin.

He’s honoring the event that started the idea: Rochesterfest.

“This past year, I wore t-shirts for water skiing teams, for organizations that support individuals with disabilities, for creative artists, for marching bands, and for nonprofits that support people with addiction,” he writes on his Facebook page.

I tried yoga poses, held owls, and was introduced to alternative medicines like cupping. I met broom ballers in spongy-soled shoes and learned about Rochester’s curling scene. I listened to heavy metal bands, found new flavors, and discovered human-sized inflatable hamster balls.

I learned about the health of the Zumbro watershed, watched roller derby in action, met radio DJs, tasted local brews, observed the proper way to fold a slice of pizza, shook hands with our city’s entrepreneurs, discovered social justice issues, read the words of local novelists, and let my daughter shoot me with a bow and arrow (don’t worry it was of the Nerf variety).

What’s he going to wear Tuesday? A T-shirt. The one his wife and daughters gave him for Father’s Day last year just before he started the streak.

(h/t: Michael Garner)