John Green—writer, creator, educator and tuberculosis fighter—started The Good Store with his brother and fellow creator Hank Green. The store began with the Awesome Socks Club, a subscription-based sock company that donates 100% of its profits to Partners in Health and their maternal health unit in Sierra Leone. Alongside the Awesome Socks Club, Green fights tuberculosis in Lesotho with Keats and Co., which sells coffee to sponsor Partners in Health and their tuberculosis care project. The Good Store exemplifies celebrities using their platforms to make a difference.

What Is The Good Store?

The Good Store sells everyday products such as socks and underwear, coffee and tea, soap and cleaning supplies, donating 100% of the profits to various charities. It was built on two principles: the Green brothers’ desire to use their respective platforms for social justice advocacy and the belief that it should be easy for people to fight injustice. The organizations under The Good Store have donated a total of more than $13 million as of 2026. Green fights tuberculosis in Lesotho and sponsors the Maternal Center of Excellence in Sierra Leone and the Maui Watershed Restoration Project. The store assures customers that buying everyday, ethically produced products makes a difference in the world.

How Is It Fighting Tuberculosis?

Green fights tuberculosis in Lesotho with the profits from Keats & Co., which sponsors Partners in Health in Lesotho. Partners in Health sets a higher standard of care, working alongside patients, scientists and policymakers to provide accessible and affordable care for all, particularly those facing poverty and economic insecurity. Tuberculosis is an entirely curable disease but still claims a life every 20 seconds, killing an estimated 1.5 million people each year. Countries like Lesotho, which are high-burden tuberculosis countries, face multi-drug resistance, underfunded health care systems and inaccessible care.

Poverty rates are the highest in rural Lesotho, where 15% of citizens face acute food insecurity and livestock disease, and elevated temperatures are expected to worsen conditions. Around 41% of the population of Lesotho lives on less than $3 per day, and nearly 50% live below the national poverty line. Conditions of poverty, including overcrowding, unstable living conditions, and lack of access to clean water create an environment where tuberculosis thrives. Because access to nutritious foods and healthcare are also factors that contribute to high tuberculosis burdens, Lesotho faces a high number of cases.

Partners in Health uses innovative solutions like mobile care clinics to treat the disease, reaching those in rural or remote areas and creating more treatment options. Because of Partners in Health’s work in Lesotho, there is now a 77% cure rate for multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, and their efforts now focus on extensively-drug-resistant tuberculosis, an even harder-to-cure strain.

Using a Platform to Make a Difference

In 2025, John Green published Everything Is Tuberculosis, a project started six years prior after Green’s visit to the Lanka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. At the hospital, he met Henry, a teen suffering from tuberculosis. Despite being 16 years old, Henry was so emaciated due to his disease and his family’s struggles that Green first thought he was a nine-year-old. After meeting Henry and learning more about the realities of tuberculosis, the author became an advocate for patients, using his platform and prominence from his young adult books and YouTube channel to influence change. Everything Is Tuberculosis outlines the history of the disease, the social stigma surrounding it, and tells the story of Henry, who has since become a healthy adult but has seen family and friends die of tuberculosis over the years.

By using his platform to educate others and fight for foreign aid for high-burden tuberculosis countries, as well as advertising the Good Store and Keats and Co., Green fights tuberculosis in Lesotho and makes a difference in the lives of those who suffer. His activism work has both shown how celebrities are able to use their platform and what an advocate looks like.

– Madalyn Youngbauer

Madalyn is based in Blaine, MN, USA and focuses on Good News and Global Health for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr