Greetings industry sends school bags, food, funds and pet supplies
As the humanitarian crisis continues in Ukraine the greeting card industry is finding new ways to help people hit by the Russian invasion.
Envelope company Blake has partnered with School In A Bag and the Rapid Relief Team to help deliver emergency food and personal care products as well as helping youngsters with essential learning resources.
Blake’s involvement saw enough funds raised to package 352 School Bags with a hygiene kit, face cloth, water bottle, lunch box and spork, as well as essential learning resources for a child to learn for a year.
The bags have been sent to a team at the Te Aud Romaina charity, which Blake partnered with two years ago while distributing school bags to orphaned children. Te Aud Romania’s location is just an hour’s drive from the Ukraine border, where families are fleeing the fighting.
And Blake has sent seven pallets of food parcels, totalling 5,292 meals, to the Rapid Relief Team as part of its Operation 322.
Retailer and publisher Earlybird has raised £600 from sales of a special card in its Stoke Newington store, with co-owner Heidi Early telling PG Buzz: “We asked Hannah who works for us to design a card, our lovely printers Hartgraph agreed to print the cards for free, we used our own envelope stock and came up with a card to sell in our shop within about 10 days of coming up with the idea.
Above: Hannah and Celine with Earlybird’s sunflower fundraisers
“Another brilliant member of our shop team is Celine, who also works as a freelance editor on a European publication. Some of her colleagues are/were based in Kyiv so we asked what we could do to help. She said they needed money. They have a ‘go fund me Keep Ukraine’s Independent Media Going’ so we donated 100% of the sales to that. Plus, Celine is a keen crocheter so she made sunflower badges which we sold too. We raised over £600 in total.”
Dog-friendly greeting card retailer Cardies, in Stevenage, has been busy ensuring people’s pets aren’t forgotten in the crisis and had special pin badges made to sell in aid of Helping The Pets Of Ukraine. With help from customers and the local Tesco, Jo Sorrell, owner of the indie card store where the shop dogs are known as The Ponks, has also just sent off another load of food to the AMA Dog Rescue.
