U R Awesome Incorporated (U R Awesome Inc.) began at the University of Miami’s Coral Gables Campus in the fall of 2009, as the brainchild of student Kemy Joseph. While pursuing his undergraduate degree, Kemy successfully coordinated several events during his tenure with the student organization Random Acts of Kindness (RAK). When he became the President of RAK, he began looking for ways to continue spreading positivity while reaching out to others outside the university community. On September 9, 2008 he began wearing signs on his chest, emblazoned with encouraging messages such as “U R Awesome” and “Love Who You Are”. This idea later evolved into the creation of U R Awesome Shirts and U R Awesome Inc. U R Awesome Shirts, screen-printed with the same positive messages as Kemy’s signs, were created to remind the wearer of their awesomeness, while simultaneously providing encouragement to themselves and others. U R Awesome Inc. was established to produce and sell U R Awesome Shirts as well as to further the ideals of love, compassion, and awesomeness which originally inspired Kemy to start wearing signs.

The strongest factor in attaining these incredible results has been our Great Give Away initiative. The Great Give Away began as an incentive-based clothing drive with the purpose of helping impoverished citizens in the local community. Those who supported The Great Give Away by donating at least five articles of clothing received a U R Awesome Shirt in appreciation for their support. The Great Give Away’s recipients also received U R Awesome Shirts in addition to the various goods collected during the drive.

Thus far, The Great Give Away has been hosted twice at the University of Miami’s Coral Gables campus by the student group Random Acts of Kindness. Our goal for the first Great Give Away was to collect 10,000 articles of clothing to give to impoverished citizens in downtown Miami. In less than three weeks, we collected 11,151 articles of clothing and distributed 2,000 U R Awesome Shirts to our donors. We then sorted the clothing by size and gender to prepare for our distribution event, which coincided with World Kindness Day. As we arrived at the distribution location, we were welcomed by a long line of enthusiastic recipients who applauded as we exited our vehicles. We promptly set up our tables and tents, and within five hours we were able to help 481 impoverished citizens by providing them with clothing, reusable shopping bags, and U R Awesome Shirts. The remaining clothing was donated to homeless shelters in the surrounding area.

During our second Great Give Away, we focused on improving the overall process to ensure that The Great Give Away’s success could be repeated year after year. Although we had a smaller goal of collecting only 2,500 articles of clothing, we collected more than 6,500 articles in less than two weeks! We deepened the impact of the second Great Give Away by conducting group reflections with our volunteers throughout the drive and by providing our recipients with food and hygiene kits in addition to the reusable shopping bags, clothing, and U R Awesome Shirts they received. We also enhanced the distribution event by utilizing an indoor location provided by the Miami Rescue Mission. This helped us created an extraordinary experience for every recipient that walked through the door. Each recipient was assigned a volunteer who walked them through the distribution process, helped them pick out clothing that fit their needs and, more importantly, provided them with superior service that simply made them feel awesome. Through surveys conducted at the event, both volunteers and recipients highlighted these one-on-one interactions as their favorite part of the distribution experience.

Both the U R Awesome Shirts and The Great Give Away have been tremendously successful in every way we hoped they would be and more! This success was made possible by the contributions of our many sponsors Artees, Chick-fil-A, Dennys, Lowes, M&M Bus Services, PODs, Power Pizza, Publix Charities, the Miami-Dade community, The Miami Rescue Mission, the University of Miami, and our dedicated volunteers.

Since our last Great Give Away, we have strengthened U R Awesome Inc. by implementing a volunteer driven organizational structure developed to maximize our sustainability and minimize our amount of salaried employees. Furthermore, we have exponentially increased our scalability by introducing three new initiatives offered free of charge as well as by redesigning The Great Give Away as a customizable and self-sustaining service-learning program.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read about our history!

To lean more about our initiatives please visit our What We Do page

Have an awesome day!

Kemy Joseph aka Mr. U R Awesome
Founder, President, Treasurer & Admin. of Operations

Kemy is a graduate of the University of Miami with Bachelors of Science in Communication. On September 9th, 2008 he began wearing different positive signs on chest as a way of spreading love and awesomeness to others. After celebrating his one year anniversary of wearing signs, Kemy founded U R Awesome Inc. to spread love and awesomeness on a bigger scale. You can learn more about Kemy and his signs by watching Mr. Awesome.

Ruben Rodriguez aka Mr. Sunshine
Vice President, Secretary & Admin. of Human Resources

Ruben was born in Miami, to Cuban parents, and has lived in this great city his entire life. Ruben worked in the insurance field for several years, helping people in times of crisis. Throughout the years, he has worked on various creative projects, as a writer, musician, and artist – but the most important thing to him is people. Learning, growing, teaching, and reaching out to others are his strongest motivations for volunteering with U R Awesome Inc. and for his life in general.

Brad Batstone aka Mr. Much Love
Vice President & Admin. of Outreach

Brad is a senior at the University of Miami majoring in Religious Studies. He is a tennis coach who loves laughing, sports, teaching, and most of all helping others. Brad is working on becoming a competitive dancer, but he’ll always love and stay focused on U R Awesome Inc. because it has given him the opportunity to make a direct impact on the community and reach out to help those in need.