Tu Revista Latina Magazine

"Show you care with the clothes you wear."

ROJO Apparels’ mission is simple: Help those facing extreme poverty while creating awareness about poverty issues. Their methodology is just as basic. ROJO seeks to make giving easy. Consumers give while they shop for the clothes they need. And while, it is not their goal to overtake people’s charitable giving, it is meant to supplement an individual’s contributions to the world around them.

While social entrepreneurship is a relatively new concept, it‘s what ROJO Apparel has been all about from the beginning. Whereas the conventional business model primarily gauges performance by return and earnings, the social entrepreneur measures success by how much “social capital” is created.

You may ask “what do you mean by ‘social capital’?” Well, as a charitable for-profit business ROJO Apparel feeds fifty hungry individuals, for every shirt sold. Currently, the meals are sent to one of two places, Zimbabwe, Africa or earthquake stricken Haiti. Since their business launch on September 20th 2009, they have provided 168,744 meals to these poverty stricken countries. That produces an average of about 747 meals provided a day! 168,744 meals provided to hungry people would be ROJOs social capital in just eight short months!

In 2006, Jose Rodriguez, an economics/finance major, and Aron Jones a marketing/leadership management major, met in a fraternity house at New Mexico State University. They worked together in recruiting and marketing for the fraternity via social media (a.k.a T-shirts and word of mouth).

Both friends worked well together and by May of 2009, they had graduated from NMSU. Jose and Aron were very business minded and had the dream of founding a charitably based company. They wanted to build a business model around giving, but were not sure what product to market in order to make this happen. Looking back to their fraternity days, they knew that clothing was an easy way to get a message across, market yourself, and make a sale. Additionally, it was an easy way to quickly get as many people involved in the community as possible.

Thus, in the fall of 2009 Jose Rodriguez and Aron Jones, launched ROJO Apparel. The name ROJO comes from the first two letters of their last names – ROdriguez and JOnes. The name ROJO also seemed a good fit because the word “rojo”, in Spanish, means “red”. The color that is internationally recognized for aid and relief efforts.

Aron and Jose are passionate about educating and inspiring others to their worthy cause. Since starting out, they have given talks to high school and college students. They have done presentations at conferences. “It’s important to know where the heart of your business is,” says Jose. One of ROJO’s main objectives is to actively seek out venues in order to educate people on what it means to create a charitable business and inform individuals specifically about poverty issues. For example, ROJO’s website gives information about poverty issues referencing The World Food Programme, 2010. Facts such as; 10.9 million children under the age of five die in developing countries each year, malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60 percent of the deaths, or 1.02 billion people do not have enough to eat. Reflecting on our own standard of living and how blessed we are, one may find it profound to think that there is so much suffering in the world. Jose and Aron have recognized a basic problem: People are starving to death. Their solution? Feed them!

ROJO Apparel has grown more quickly and dramatically, than Aron and Jose could have imagined when they first began. Within the first few months of launching their business they grew into having a staff that includes a dozen interns. They had their first Meal Packing Event in April. Five hundred volunteers showed up and a total of 106,920 meals were packed in one day!

Jose and Aron’s vision for their business goes beyond providing meals for hungry people in Africa and Haiti. “Our goal is to expand to wherever there is a need.” In the future they hope to be able to offer their customers a variety of charitable options when they purchase an item. In addition to providing meals to the hungry, they will be looking to supply clean water to those in need, donate to cancer research, and provide vaccines or bed nets to help stop the spread of malaria.

Their clothing and accessories can be purchased through their website www.rojoapparel.com or at Chain Driven Bikes Shop and Rental located at 763 East University Avenue. Whether you purchase in store or online, you can be sure that your money will be well spent, going to a worthy cause. A cause in which one meal may mean the difference between nourishment or starvation.
For more information, e-mail ROJO at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By Cecilia E. Ayala-Aguirre

Summer 10