No matter your politics, we can all agree America has a major problem with gun violence. How is it we’re becoming numb to our 44,000 annual deaths by gunshot? Mass shootings are becoming so commonplace they hardly warrant a news mention. If we’re unwilling to make major changes to our laws, then what changes are we willing to make? Is it reasonable to wear a bulletproof vest for daily activities, such as going to the grocery store, attending a movie, work or school?

We decided to answer those questions with the New Life Vest project, a fake product for a very real problem. On a shoestring budget, we developed social, digital, web, video and outdoor to carry out and share this social experiment. Along the way, we met and began to collaborate with Change the Ref founders Manny and Patricia Oliver, the parents of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the Parkland, Florida school shooting. They ended up as our video hosts, our nationwide advocators and PR collaborators.