We are endlessly amazed at the response to our products and the stories we hear from many of the amazing people that we meet along the way and so I share another story.
Several years ago, at a jam packed convention, a woman made her way through the crowd to our demonstration table. It was the middle of May in Puyallup, Washington and she was wearing gloves! I was once again demonstrating the Kreate-a-lope envelope template that we are most recognized for and the crowd was abuzz with excitement. It had been a long winter for Puyallup residents and many of them made their way to the fairgrounds and our convention.
As I finished the demo she started to speak. “Are you the inventor of the Kreate-a-lope?” she asked. “Yes,” I answered. She continued, “I belong to a group of crafters that does crafts for therapy. Until this, envelopes and cards were very difficult for us. I wanted to say thank you.” I gratefully acknowledged her.
This was by now a consistent occurrence. I remember thinking, “This is what the Kreate-a-lope is really all about.” After our early (and still ongoing) successes on QVC, I realized that the envelope template’s success was not to be measured in sales but rather the door that opens when you facilitate the process of creating. We’ve received countless letters from all walks of life responding to the fun of creating using our products.
One letter comes to mind from a mother in Annapolis, MD whose child suffered from bi-polar disorder. She told us that her son had been going through a bad bout with depression at one point and she was beside herself. The week before, we met at a party and I gave her one of the extra templates I customarily began to carry around with me after finding out she was interested in paper crafts. Not knowing what to do about her son, she showed him how to use the envelope template I gave her and left his room, only to return an hour later to see a smile on his face, a pile of envelopes on his bed, and torn up lacrosse magazines all over the floor.
The Puyallup woman was fairly young. I really didn’t know what to think because she couldn’t have been older than forty. “How bad could it be?” I thought to myself as I looked at her gloves. She saw me looking but she was not uncomfortable. She asked if I would like to see her hands under the gloves. I nodded and she pulled one back over her fingers to reveal a very swollen hand. “None of us can use scissors because we have a rare arthritis. The problem is really with our knuckles. I have strength in my hand even though they’re very swollen so I can grip paper okay. With your envelope template we can just tear.”
Right in the middle of this conversation a boy no older than 11 that had been hanging out near our booth all morning came up to me and handed me a paper. Inscribed in crisp elegant calligraphic lettering was the phrase, “Have a great day, Nick.” I still have it to this day. Later I would come to find out from the boy’s mother that he was an idiot savant like Dustin Hoffman’s character in “Rain Man,” and could draw anything with amazing detail.
My meeting with the gloved woman was a gift and the boy’s gift was the exclamation point because I was having a great day.
I wanted to share this story with you, our customer – many of whom have become our friends throughout the years – a sincere thank you and best wishes in all you do.
Sincerely,
Nick Romer
President, www.greensneakers.com
