WASHINGTON COUNTY, Vt. (WCAX) – Ten-year-old Rosie Bean is a happy kid. When she’s not playing soccer or basketball, this fifth grader focuses on sharing one very important message.
“Any day can be a happy, good day,” Rosie said with a smile.
Plastered on T-shirts, hats, mugs and more, Happy Good Day started out as an unsanctioned art project that went awry.
“There was like, a whole art project on our living room carpet,” recalled Rosie’s mom, Kate.
“I was going to paint a canvas that said ‘Happy Thanksgiving,’ but I didn’t know how to spell Thanksgiving at the time,” explained Rosie.
She’s got the spelling all ironed out now, but Thanksgiving was an admittedly big word for the then-8-year-old. So, she went with what she knew, and painted “Happy Good Day!” instead.
Kate loved the creation and decided to have it printed on T-shirts to give to Rosie and other family members for Christmas.
“In the meantime, my husband I were like… this is so cute. And, my husband goes, ‘I would totally buy one of those,’” Kate said. “So, we talked about maybe having someone print us up some more.”
The first few orders were printed by Miller’s Screen Printing down in Wells, Vermont. Eventually, the Bean family decided to learn the ropes of screen printing themselves.
“They gave us a whole lesson, and they helped us get what we needed to get started. We brought it all back here, set up the little area in our basement,” said Kate. “It was like a vertical learning curve.”
Now, Rosie tackles the tees herself, though she often gets help from her parents and sister.
The shirts have taken Central Vermont by storm. Rosie says her friends have been very supportive, but it goes even further than that.
“I went to one of my soccer teammates’ birthday party. One of their relatives or friends were wearing a Happy Good Day shirt,” she said. “She came over to me like this and said, ‘I love your artwork!’”
Her whole school bought shirts, too. The classmate camaraderie even made it to the local paper.
“Knowing that I printed those shirts [is] really cool,” she said.
The shirts, printed by Rosie and her family, are available online, at Lenny’s Shoe and Apparel, and at markets across Vermont.
“We’ve been to a lot of markets, Rosie loves them. She runs around and buys things from all the other vendors basically, and eats the whole time,” laughed Kate.
The best part is that this crew donates a chunk of their profits to charities around the state. So, while she’s learning to run her own business, she’s learning how to support others, too. It’s a big undertaking for a 10-year-old, but Rosie says it’s all about making people happy.
“Hopefully it goes on for a long time,” she said
Copyright 2025 WCAX. All rights reserved.
