NEW YORK – “Save A Sample!”—the design industry recycling drive based in New York—is going national! Answering the call from cities around the country, design firms in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Rochester and Washington, D.C., will now be able to donate boxes brimming with unneeded materials to SpecSimple.com's Save A Sample!
Save A Sample! creates "another life" for these unused materials—fabrics, brochures and finish cards—by donating them to local design schools. Students benefit throughout the year by having a professional set of resources to work with.
"We've always wanted to offer Save A Sample! in additional locations" says Suzanne Swift, Save A Sample's creator and president of SpecSimple.com. Founded in 1993, SpecSimple.com is the industry's first Web portal for design industry information and the home of Virtual Library, the industry's acclaimed product research tool.
"With the help of industry sponsors and local furniture dealers, we will finally be able to extend Save A Sample! to design firms and schools in other cities. With more design firms around the country finding a good home for their samples, a greater number of design schools and their students are in for a treat," adds Swift. “SpecSimple.com has always provided our students with a huge array of useful materials for experimentation and for their projects. The scholarship also enables us to have one additional work-study student in here and that is a huge gift in and of itself.”
"The samples have helped to keep the resource room up to date and full of surprises that allow the students to show their creativity. The scholarship has been great in allowing us to help students and to order books and magazines," affirms Heather Smart, of Parsons New School for Design School.
Supported by Knoll, AIA, ASID, IIDA, SMPS and the USGBC, Save A Sample! has collected more than 10 tons of materials and raised more than $50,000 in scholarships since its inception in April, 2009. Last year's scholarships were distributed to the Art Institute, FIT, Kean University, NYIT, Parsons The New School, and Pratt Institute and School of Visual Arts.
This year's Save A Sample! runs from April 20 - 22. For additional information, about Save A Sample!, visit www.specsimple.com.
For more information or to hold a Save A Sample! in your city, contact Suzanne Swift: (212) 352-2002 ext.12 or [email protected].
