With Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter all having fallen during lockdown, this Father’s Day is the only Spring Season event this year that bricks and mortar card retailers are able to welcome customers into their shops to browse their displays.
With the all-important last few days push to go before the event, they are all braced to make the most of it.
“I’ll get excited about Father’s Day when it starts to happen – from tomorrow onwards!” summed up Deborah Tingay, owner of Southbourne Cards this morning (June 16). “The sales will be mostly last minute and as always, it’s mostly about humour. What a complete opposite to Mothering Sunday (which sells as soon as the cards are out on display with the high ticket designs going first,” she adds.
Further north as Tutbury Present Company in Staffordshire, Nicky Stephenson, co-owner of the Tutbury shop said that, as anticipated “Sales only really seemed to have started to pick up over the last week- a similar trading pattern to previous years. However, we have made sure we have plenty of stock for our only ‘fully open’ Spring season to have plenty of choice for the last minute Saturday shoppers!”
Online operator, Thortful has collaborated on a special range of Father’s Day cards for dads no longer with us. The range, created in collaboration with Cards to Heaven, will see 100% of profit from the sale of the cards donated to Life for a Life, supporting the creation of Starling Wood, a memorial forest in the UK.
Vyvyan Greenall, founded Cards to Heaven after the death of her own father. “His loss was so painful, and I felt it so much during special times like birthdays, anniversaries and especially on Father’s Day. I wanted to write a card to my Dad and had nowhere to send it. It saddened me to send a card which I then put on a grave, to see it destroyed by the rain before being removed.”
Recognising that there would be others who shared her pain, she created Cards to Heaven, a Facebook page which is a visual memorial to remember these very special Dads, where you can send a physical card and have the message to your Dad displayed.
Vyvyan goes on to say “death feels so final, but this allows a small comfort and a way to express your feelings telling Dad how much you love him.”
Thortful’s special collection honours these Dads. Everyone who buys and sends these cards to Cards to Heaven will also be supporting Life for a Life charity which will see Starling Wood being created by planting 8,000 trees, creating a bio-diverse woodland which will become a home for many species of birds and other wildlife as well a place of refuge for the local community.
Deputy ceo Emma Scott from Life for a Life said: “Working with Thortful and Cards to Heaven has given the Starling Wood restoration even greater meaning, helping to turn the pain of loss into something positive, especially on a special but sometimes difficult day like Father’s Day”.
For more info visit https://www.thortful.com/fathers-day/every-kind-of-dad and see the full collection at: https://www.thortful.com/cards/dadspassed
Above: Part of the window display in Scribbler’s Bath store, promoting Father’s Day and supporting Pride.
