Heyyy Cards partners with Stationery Supplies to brighten people’s day and aid charity
A conversation at the recent PG Live exhibition has led to a philanthropic collaboration between newbie card publisher Heyyy Cards, co-owned by Dan and Yvette Clarkson and award-winning indie Stationery Supplies, owned by Sarah Laker.
Beautiful bespoke cards are all set to be personalised at Sarah’s Wilmslow store as the publisher and retailer partner up for a special Thinking Of You Week initiative which, as well as forming part a great community event that echos the “send a card deliver a smile” ethos of TOYW, will also raise funds for the East Cheshire Hospice.
Having only set up last year, this is Heyyy Cards’ first opportunity to get involved in Thinking of You Week, which takes place over 19-25 September, and it’s a first too for Stationery Supplies’ owner Sarah.
Based closed to Sarah’s shops, Dan and Yvette came up with the idea of a personalised card printing event with Stationery Supplies while they were chatting to Sarah at PG Live, and the session is all planned to take place on Friday, 23 September, with the local and social marketing plan already hatched.
“We wanted to create an offering of brand-new cards specifically for the event,” explained Dan, the designer behind Heyyy Cards’ relatable, humorous and heartfelt greetings, “to give people a choice of designs that they could personalise, all promoting the Thinking Of You theme. We worked alongside Sarah to develop five new cards in a range of styles – hopefully people will like them on the day!”
Sarah, no stranger to the merits of an initiative having clinched the Best Retailer Initiative award in The Retas 2022, told PG Buzz: “I was delighted to be asked by Dan and Yvette at PG Live to collaborate with them on TOYW. I’ve never taken part before as it’s so close to Back To School, which is one of our busiest times of the year.
“However, Dan and Yvette have made organising the event a dream by not only designing some truly beautiful bespoke cards, but also creating all the social media images, advertising flyers and posters. I’m delighted to be working with them especially as they’re fairly local to my two shops.”
With TOYW posters and branding all over the shop, and flyers on the counter with order forms, Sarah’s all set to organise a window and card display just as soon as Back To School is over – being a stationery specialist makes this a very important period for her two stores in Wilmslow and Marple.
She also plans to drop flyers into local businesses and advertising on social media as well as taking pre-orders for the personalised cards from her Marple customers. And the non-personalised version of the card will be available online as part of the GCA’s Woman magazine offer alongside a range of Dandelion Stationery designs.
Yvette added: “As a new publisher this is our very first opportunity to be involved with Thinking Of You Week and we’re super excited to be working with Stationery Supplies. We came up with the idea of setting up a personalisation booth to give members of the local community the unique opportunity to see their own card being printed and personalised in store.”
The action-packed big day will also see a raffle, cake sale, lucky dip and more to boost the coffers of the East Cheshire Hospice, with £1 from the sale of every personalised card also going to the cause.
Sarah explained: “Not only did we want to organise a really fun day for our customers, but it was also really important to be able to include some charitable activities to give something back to the local community.
“We chose the East Cheshire Hospice as a charity because a close friend of one of my members of staff is being supported by them in his final months. The care given by the hospice to not only the person with cancer but to the whole family is outstanding and we’re pleased to be able to give back to them in this small way as only 17% of hospice funding comes from the Government.”
If you have a Thinking Of You Week event that you’d like to shout about please email jakkib@max-publishing.co.uk, and to find out more about this annual GCA initiative please visit the website where there is lots of information and resources including a downloadable toolkit.
Top: Heyyy Cards and Stationery Supplies are supporting Thinking Of You Week
