StockPins Blog

We have been informed by the administration at VT – that the official policy is that they want absolutely no memorial items produced and are using all possible means to stop merchants from offering such items. 

We respect the difficult position that the VT administration is in.   On the one hand the community is looking for ways to express their grief while on the other the administration needs to protect the privacy and dignity of the families. 

We originally designed our pin in response to dozens of requests from members of the VT community.  We regret any inconvenience that this causes to our customers.  Many of you were planning to use the pin in your fundraising efforts to support the victims and their families.  As a substitute we will offer our black ribbon pin at the same special price.   We also are encouraging all our customers to donate directly to The Hokie Sprit Memorial Fund

We ask for your understanding – there are a lot of people trying to do the right thing here and we all just need to find our way through this. 

~Pinonda

This has been an incredibly tough week for everyone.  The tragedy Monday really hit home with a lot of people.  Our hearts go out to all the victims and their families, we can’t begin to imagine the pain that they must feel. 

Since monday we have received dozens of requests for a VT Memorial pin.  We always struggle with such requests – not wanting to offend anyone but at the same time wanting to respond to our customers.  The below exchange between our product manager Steve and a customer pretty much sums up our internal struggle: 

Dear StockPins.  After every national tradegy we’ve had (including 9/11 and Katrina), I have come to your website to see what awareness/support pins you had and have always bought plenty.  After the shooting at Virginia Tech, I came here thinking you might have a support/fundraiser pin for Tech as you did for Katrina and have not seen anything yet.  I was wondering if you were planning to create such a pin or if you might consider it?

Please let me know if you can.

Thank you.

Rosaline

———————————

Hi Roasaline – thanks for writing.  We always struggle with this.  Like
everyone we’re deeply affected by tragedies like this and don’t want to
appear to be profiteering.  At the same time, we do have many customers
who, like you want to be able to show their support for the victims.
After much consideration and numerous requests like yours – we have
decided to offer a special pin.

 It will be available online shortly and will be shipping in late next
week.

Thanks for writing

Steve
——————————-

Steve:

Thank you for the quick response.  Especially if it has an element of
fundraising, which I believe you usually do in cases such as this, I
think it is seen as a completely positive thing and not as a way to
“cash in” on a tragedy – so, in my opinion, I feel you have made the
correct choice.

I will check later this afternoon to see if its up yet and place my
order.

Thank you again.

Rosaline

————————–
Hi Rosaline – thanks – It’s a hard choice.

In the case of the Katrina and 911 tragedies we collected funds and then
sent it to the red cross.  In this case I really wouldn’t know where to
send the funds.  Plus lots of people like to use the pin for their own
fundraising or just to hand out to people in the community.  So in those
cases we need to be able to sell them as inexpensively as possible.   I
think what we’ll do is offer the pins as inexpensively as we can so
people can give them away or use them to raise money on their own.

——————–

Good plan – thanks again!

Rosaline

In the end, as you can see we did decide to a Virginia Tech Black Ribbon Pin.  We’re offering it at our lowest possible price for any quantity – because we want as many people to be able to show their support and hopefully raise lots of money.  Please share your stories with us. 

We had a heartwarming call today from a customer that I just have to share. A woman called today looking for 1 helicopter lapel pin and she wanted it sent Overnight. We got to talking and her story really made my day.

She is a close family friend of a little girl who, for reasons that we didn’t discuss, needed to be evacuated to a hospital by the quickest possible means. In the end she was picked up by helicopter and flown to the hospital where her doctor was able to save her life. The little girl wanted to thank her doctor for the extraordinary efforts by giving him (or her – I’m not sure) a Helicopter pin.

What can you say after a call like that…. I was so thrilled that the story had such a happy ending.

Hi folks, been a while since I have “blogged”. I have been so busy. Keep the orders coming! Today’s topic–Spring! Oh what better time to “sport” your favorite pin and make a big fashion statement. With so many outdoor sports getting into full swing, we have a large assortment of pins to keep those conversations going. Not to mention the friends you could make!  So whether it’s fishing, boating or another kind of sport, search for the pin you can say “wow, how cool” too! Speaking of sports..golf is very near (if not already)…have you seen our Golf Hat / Pocket Clips? Our Divot Tools? Already have a divot tool but need replacement ball markers?–Got ‘EM!  Check out our personalized golf items!