The Sole Project

The Detroit Dye House is a place for creativity, making messes and letting go. It is also a place for connection, a place where together we pay it forward. We take seriously the role we play in our community, and firmly believe in giving back love and kindness, which we do through various humanitarian endeavors we have come to call the Sole Project. 

The Sole Project is a pursuit of compassion, a labor of love: making things beautiful for those who need it most. 

The largest effort of the Sole Project is through our regular dye workshop, the Dye Class 101, which is available throughout the week for people to come learn to tie dye. Each participant makes three things during the class: two to keep, and one to give back to the community.  The donation item that every participant makes when they come changes throughout time. When we first moved to Detroit, we made beanies and blankets to donate to Children’s Hospital. Starting in 2021, we’ve been focusing on making socks for the unhoused population of Detroit. We’re currently partnered with the Empowerment Plan, and donate the socks made in class through them. We estimate from June to December 2021, we have had over 1000 participants create and donate 1000 pairs of socks. 

 The Sole Project also organizes additional specialty projects. Most recently, we held an event this past October where we were able to donate 300 super soft beanies to Children’s Hospital of Michigan’s Department of Oncology. Participants were taught a variety of dyeing techniques at stations throughout the dye house as we created the beanies together. The participant fee covered the cost of the ultra soft, stretchy fabric and the local seamstresses who sewed the hats. We had about 45 participants come dye with us, and almost as many people as that donated additional funds to help out.

Before we started dye classes and the ongoing donations of the Sole Project, we proudly partnered with Crossroads of Michigan for ten years, annually sponsoring a soup kitchen for a weekend, as well as running a warm coat drive during the holiday season. 

Additionally, when brightlytwisted first started as a wholesaler, we would donate any scarf with a design imperfection to RainCatchers, an organization that provides clean water and supplies to Haiti. Through them, we were able to give thousands of scarves to be used as head covers and baby wraps to women in need. 

We’ve also participated in a variety of other outreach programs, including donating goods to charity auctions, doing dye station pop-ups at charity events, and even hosting other groups’ fundraisers in the dye house. 

The Sole Project is Detroit Dye House’s and brightlytwisted’s commitment to consistently give back in whatever way we can to the community of which we are a part.