SAA’s Global Leaders and Partners

Randy Novak chats with Global Heroes
Patrinell Wright and Renee Firestone

Shirts Across America has worked with amazing global leaders since our inception.  These amazing individuals have impacted our students and helped us create thoughtful leaders.

Pastor Patrinell Wright
Founder and Director Total Experience Gospel Choir
Pat Wright has been a leader who uses her music to bring diverse communities together for 50 years. She has performed with hundreds of musicians in the studio and live. Pat has performed for global leaders including the Dalai Lama, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Kings and Queens of different nations and several United States Presidents.  She was the only person to sing at Jimi Hendrix’s funeral in Seattle.

Most importantly, Pastor Wright has always stood up for those who have felt voiceless. She was named ABC’s World News Tonight’s Person of the Week and Person of the Year in 2007 for her work in Mississippi and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Shirts Across America is proud to call Pat a global leader but also a friend.

Renee Firestone
Holocaust Survivor
Renee is a tireless leader in Social Justice, Holocaust Remembrance and Education.  She has won hundreds of awards and is the founding lecturer of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Education Outreach program.  Mrs. Firestone lectures youth and adults around the world about her experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

Renee was featured in the documentary, The Last Days, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and won an academy award.  She speaks all over the world about the Holocaust and genocides.

SAA is grateful for the incredible relationship we have with Renee.

Erin Gruwell
Educator and Founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation
Erin selfless and  incredible energy is contagious.  She stood up for her students and made it her mission to have them all graduate from high school.  The Freedom Writers Diary was created in the classroom and was made into a Motion Picture.  Erin now trains teachers from around the Globe to positively impact their students through her unique methodology.  She has been tasked by US State Department to work with educators from Israel and Palestine to create an environment of trust and resolution.

Tresor Rusesabagina
Rwanda Genocide Survivor
Tresor shared his incredible story with our students and inspired us through his words.  He is a survivor of Hotel Rwanda, as his father Paul Rusesabagina protected his family and 1,100 other Tutsis from the Hutus army.  Tresor is a young adult himself and is studying here in America.

Fr. Gregory Boyle
Founder of Homeboy Industries