At first, Sir Darius just wore his bow ties himself. (He still does, by the way—”Everywhere I go, I make sure I wear my bow ties,” he says.) But in 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey and Irma struck, he realized his creations had a higher purpose. Watching the news, he says, “I kept seeing people getting helped, but I didn’t see animals getting helped at all. I asked myself, how come the people are getting helped, but not the animals?” Then he heard a report of animals being rescued and transferred from Texas to the ASPCA in New York City. “I thought to myself, what if I use my passion for making bow ties to help the dogs and cats find their forever loving homes?” Since then, Sir Darius estimates he’s made and donated nearly 400 bow ties to animals in need, with plans to donate another 300 this August alone. In addition to the ASPCA in New York City, he’s mailed them to shelters all across the U.S., from Virginia and Pennsylvania to Illinois and Michigan. He’s even sent bow ties to shelters in the United Kingdom. Sir Darius also posts photos of shelter pets wearing his bow ties to his Instagram page, advocating for their adoption to his more than 60,000 followers.,Shelter pets wait patiently every day for loving parents to adopt them into their forever homes—and looking their best never hurts! Enter 13-year-old Sir Darius Brown of Newark, New Jersey, who’s adding swag to shelter pets’ wags all across the country. Sir Darius has turned bow ties into a lifesaving tool for shelter animals, sewing and donating nearly 400 of the fashionable accessories since 2017 to help shelter animals get noticed and adopted more quickly. And along the way, he’s earned praise from former President Barack Obama and the British government, among many others. “A bow tie, in particular, just gives off that certain something,” Sir Darius says. “It has this distinction that helps the person pop out. So I felt like the bow tie might give off happiness or some dapperness for the animals to help them get adopted.”