PHOENIX, March 28, 2018 – Casegoods manufacturer Eclipse Hospitality has matched the prize money in a Coloring for Kids contest, awarding a private donation to further the work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Organized by multi-line manufacturer’s representative Louise Ross, president of Louise Ross & Associates, the Coloring for Kids contest challenged designers in the hospitality industry to feature their artistic talent by coloring any of the four alternating designs included in a pad of coloring book-style sticky notes.
Eclipse Hospitality distributed the custom-designed sticky notes together with a set of mini colored pencils as premium items at its tradeshow booth at Boutique Design New York (BDNY) last November. The pad of sticky notes featured iconic architectural landmarks from four major travel destinations, including the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Oriental Pearl tower in Shanghai and the Coliseum and the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy. The giveaway was so popular at BDNY that Ross decided to launch a coloring contest.
“I watched how much fun the adults were having at BDNY coloring these sticky notes,” explained Ross. “I wanted to share the delightful pads and pencils with more of my network. But what inspired me to make it the Coloring for Kids contest was the fact that the sticky notes were hand-drawn by a teenager, perhaps a budding designer herself,” quipped Ross. “That’s how I knew we should use the contest to give back to children.”
Ross, a former board member of NEWH Dallas, distributed the notepads this past January at the Houston NEWH Regional Tradeshow and encouraged her network of design professionals to submit their finished art into the Coloring for Kids contest. Ross offered a total of 12 cash prizes, rewarding four first-place, four second-place and four third-place winners. Anand Patel, CEO and founder of Eclipse Hospitality, quickly matched the prize monies in the form of a cash donation to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
“Although our families don’t have a direct connection to St. Jude’s, Louise and I deeply admire the St. Jude’s mission,” said Patel. “St. Jude’s generously provides universal access to cancer care to children from all over the United States and the world, regardless of their family’s race, religion or ability to pay. More importantly, St. Jude’s is renowned for improving the survival rate for children with cancer.”
Ross was overwhelmed by the response to the coloring challenge, and submissions began coming back within days of the contest announcement. “We wanted to stay true to Louise’s Coloring for Kids vision, so we arranged for the teenage designer and her friends to judge the contest,” explained Patel. “We put the responsibility of judging the charitable contest back into the hands of kids. Because St. Jude’s was the beneficiary, I think everyone involved in the whole contest process feels like they benefitted.”
The winning colored sticky notes are featured on the Eclipse Hospitality website at Eclipse Hospitality News.
