Matthew Hazlett/ The Towerlight

A stitch of fabric was all it took to bring sophomore graphic design major Samantha Febrizio and senior mass communication major Elana Diestel together.

The two had never met before when they both were accepted as campus representatives for Serengetee, a T-shirt company.

Serengetee produces plain T-shirts with pocket fabrics that represent different countries.

In a process that works similar to TOMS Shoes, $10 of the proceeds from buying a Serengetee T-shirt go towards a charity from the country represented in the fabric.

Several college students that had been studying abroad in 2011 were inspired by all the different fabrics they saw in marketplaces and wanted to share them with their families and friends back home, Diestel said. Thus, Serengetee was formed.

“They saw fabric as a way of connecting people to the world,” Diestel said.

The fabrics’ design comes from around the world, Febrizio said. They hail from just about every continent. This week’s headliner the country is Haiti, meaning $10 of each Haiti patterned purchase will go toward Moving with the Spirit Mission Haiti (MWTS), which strives to build orphanages, schools and health clinics in the third-world nation.

Diestel said she heard about Serengetee through a friend, the Serengetee representative at the University of Maryland, College Park. When it was announced that Serengetee was looking for more campus representatives, Febrizio said she applied to be the rep for Towson and scored the position.

Diestel said she applied a few weeks afterwards and Febrizio said she agreed to share the position with her.

By the end of the summer, both Febrizio and Diestel said they had begun brainstorming ideas of how to spread the word on campus about Serengetee.

“I’m advertising, PR major and what I’ve found out that I love to do is applying [what I’ve learned] in the classroom to the real world,” Diestel said. “It’s good that we’re both passionate about the cause because it doesn’t make it a job but more fun.”

Febrizio and Diestel have developed several plans to tell the campus about their cause.

The duo intends to design banners to spread the word, as well as holding events to raise awareness.

Diestel said it’s all about following Serengetee’s mission: “We want to celebrate diversity of humankind while enacting targeted global progress through support of the best charitable organizations.”