The gift that keeps on giving

One of the greatest challenges in the paper business is when a mill suddenly discontinues a stock that was a part of our line. Fortunately, it is not too common an occurrence. It’s most disconcerting when we are enlightened that the stock is no longer available. Arrr! This leaves us without the ability to plan ahead or proactively inform our customers. It also, inevitably leaves us with inventory we can no longer sell. The silver lining to said stocks is that we are able to donate them to organizations that mean a great deal to us –particularly on a local level.

THINK Together is a local non-profit organization committed to improving academic outcomes for children and youth living in under-resourced communities.  Their programs began in response to a plea from a gang-ridden neighborhood to provide a safe place for children to do their homework after school. From those humble beginnings, they have grown into one of the nation’s largest non-profit providers of extended learning time programs, serving more than 100,000 youth at over 400 locations in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino and San Diego Counties. THINK Together also offers summer learning opportunities, small group tutoring, early learning programs, and school-age child care.  Envelopments donated several pallets of discontinued stock for the kids to use in the programs and for the company to use in marketing and fundraising activities.

The large paper donation we made to the THINK Together organization came back to us tenfold when we received these photos of some of the projects that the program’s children had created with Envelopments stocks.  It warms our hearts to see that those stocks are able to be used by such an incredible and charitable organization.  Looking at these photos, it sure takes the sting out of the initial “hassle” related to discontinued stocks and It looks like we have some future designers to keep an eye on as well!