(SOUTHERN COLORADO) — Less than a year after the Waldo Canyon Fire, another Colorado Springs community found itself in need of help and support as the Black Forest Fire sprung to life.

Once again Coloradans rallied and showed they would be there, and a group of friends thrust into a massive t-shirt business were extremely busy once again.

The group started Wild Fire Tees during the Waldo Canyon Fire out of a desire to make a difference. “It was, ‘Hey, let’s do something about this,’ and I think Austin actually had brought forward the idea of t-shirts,” said Tucker Wannamaker, Executive Director of Wild Fire Tees.

Using their unique skill sets, including design and marketing, they created Wild Fire Tees, but they had no idea how fast their idea would spread. “This was our way of volunteering,” said Wannamaker.

“We launched on Monday at Noon I think, and at the end of the day on Tuesday we had already sold $183,000 in t-shirts,” he said. “We were like ‘Woah! We didn’t expect that!’ We thought we were just going to sit around on a Saturday afternoon drinking beer and selling t-shirts to our friends and this thing, like, literally went viral up on Facebook.”

None of them had a t-shirt company or knew how to run a nonprofit, but they found a way to get the shirts made and for each $20 t-shirt sold, $10 went to charity, and the other $10 covered the cost of making and shipping the shirt. “We didn’t pay ourselves anything,” said Wannamaker.

People bought t-shirts from around the world, clothing a community in comfort. “I remember one clearly in front of the Sydney Opera House,” said Wannamaker.

A simple shirt, now a sign of solidarity. “When I wear my t-shirt, I’m like ‘Yeah! That’s awesome!’ still, to this day,” Wannamaker said.

And when the Black Forest Fire happened less than a year later, the group created a new design while keeping the same mission. “When the Black Forest Fire came, we created a new C-Fire t-shirt,” Wannamaker said.

In a little over a year, the organization sold more than a million dollars worth of shirts and gave away all the proceeds.

The group of friends has since gone back to their careers and moved on to different projects, but should the Colorado Springs community ever find itself in need again, Wanamaker said perhaps they could rally one more time.

Wild Fire Tees is no longer actively fundraising but their website is still online. Wannamaker said whatever stock they have left is for sale and they will still donate the proceeds to the community.