By Maggie Sue
For The Herald-Dispatch
MILTON — Blenko Glass presented a check for $85,259 to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of West Virginia on Thursday as part of its Glass for Good program.
As part of Glass for Good, Blenko designs suncatchers for nonprofits. Half of the profit from each one goes toward the organization. It has run 18 campaigns since the program started, but this is by far the most successful.
Blenko’s goal is to raise $100,000 in the next seven days. The company has already sold more than 6,000 suncatchers.
“The donation that we gave today represents the largest donation Blenko has ever been able to contribute. In fact, it was larger than all of our other contributions combined. We’ve been doing this since 2002,” said David Wertz, vice president of manufacturing at Blenko.
The glass artisans make about 60 suncatchers an hour; each one is stamped by hand. Wertz asked for customers to have patience as they work on fulfilling the orders.
There are two suncatchers to honor Dolly Parton. A blue one features a guitar, book and butterflies, while a yellow one has butterflies and reads “I will always love you.” They sell for $28 each.
Both were designed by Jamie Lima, state director of the Imagination Library, and Cathie Sprouse, wholesale coordinator at Blenko.
“Cathie and I collaborated on a couple different drafts of design. We really wanted to encompass books, butterflies, and ballads, all the things that Dolly is known for,” Lima said. “Dolly is considered an American treasure and I think the same could be said for Blenko Glass as one of the only four original remaining handmade glass manufacturers in our state.”
They chose blue to symbolize the butterfly that is the Dollywood logo and yellow because it was one of Dolly’s favorite colors.
“We’ve received such an outpouring of support since Dolly’s passing, and this amazing partnership, Glass for Good with Blenko Glass, is our largest donation to the program, not only this year, maybe ever, next to the state funds that we received,” Lima said.
Read more from The Herald-Dispatch here
The post Blenko Glass for Good raises over $80K for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of WV appeared first on West Virginia Press Association.
