(Re)Learning to Swim
First, we want to continually say "thanks" to all those who have supported flood relief in Middle Tennessee through our "We Are Nashville" merchandise.
The response has been overwhelming, and we mean that in the best possible sense of the word.
When we launched Cool People Care in 2006, we were launching a content portal and wanted to sell some shirts on the side. That was a small, somewhat shallow pool to play in and we knew we were skilled enough swimmers to do laps up and down, back and forth.
Over the years we've made, had made, printed, silkscreened and created various merchandise (mostly T-Shirts) with the sole purpose of offering a better product for a better reason -- all in support of the "lifestyle of caring." And we've kept our heads above water delivering on the promises we've sold through our online store.
Following the devastating floods in Middle Tennessee, a swell of support and emotion followed. Cool People Care, along with other local Nashvillians, banded together to offer the "We Are Nashville" message of hope and solidarity on a T-Shirt and a bumper sticker. The message was needed and the response was immediate -- both to our product offering, but also to hands-on relief, recovery and donation. None of us could imagine the overwhelming response. And our ability at Cool People Care to swim with the rapidly growing current was compromised.
We continued to operate in the "small" way we always had, while making plans to expand as rapidly as possible in order to accommodate the influx of orders.
While continuing our amazing relationship with our friends at The Friendly Arctic, we realized in order to meet the demand and fulfill the orders, we needed to outsource some of our printing.
We outsourced our shipping once, and then again in order to ensure utmost care was taken with delivering purchased goods and honoring the spirit by which they were purchased.
As we organized orders at night and bustled boxes before dawn, we slowly got our sea legs back. With the help of a wonderful community, selfless friends, and understanding customers, we're nearly all caught up with the backorder of shirt orders and should have all current orders out the door, on their way before Memorial Day.
In the past 3 weeks we've sold more than 8,000 T-Shirts and 2,500 bumper stickers with three simple, yet promising words on them. The money will go to The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to be disbursed to those doing the important work of renewal and recovery in our hometown of Nashville. We will continue to make and ship as long as people continue to order, and we hope to continue to create opportunities for individuals, nonprofits and companies to support Nashville in its time of need by echoing the reassurance that is "We Are Nashville."
We appreciate your patience as we've learned to swim again. We feel we're stronger for it, and couldn't have done it without you.