Memorial Fund for Denise Bowman and Richard Palazzo

These beautiful Autism Butterfly T-Shirts printed by Graphic Perspective are now available for purchase to raise money to build a memorial for two dedicated, long-term Groden Network employees who passed away earlier this year; Denise Bowman and Richard Palazzo.

Denise Bowman served in a multitude of roles during her 25 years with the Groden Network, and was truly considered an ideal staff member; and Richard Palazzo, a Special Education Teacher at the Groden Center for over 20 years, will be best remembered as a kind and caring individual who was loved by the students he taught and their families, as well as by his colleagues.

The Groden Network provides school and residential services to children, teens, and adults with a range of learning and behavioral disabilities in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The butterfly design is printed on a black Gildan ultra cotton T-Shirt. The shirts are $17.00 each, and are available in Small, Medium, Large, or Extra Large.

For more details, please see this order form. Orders can be made by messaging Marlena Davis or PixByMarlena on Facebook or by emailing PixByMarlena@hotmail.com.

Choosing an Environmentally Friendly Alternative

Thanks to the ubiquitous blue and green plastic bins, we all know that recycling our bottles, cans and paper products helps to keep our environment healthy by cutting down on waste; but did you know that textile waste - our used clothing - occupies nearly 5% of all landfill space?

If you've ever donated your clothes to a charity like Goodwill or the Salvation Army, you might wonder what happens to the clothes you drop into one of those clothing recycling bins.

Well, some of them - about 45% - are reused and repurposed, while nearly 50% are actually recycled! In fact, 3.8 billion pounds of post-consumer textile waste is recycled each year.

Textile recycling is the method of reusing or reprocessing fabrics such as second-hand clothing or clothing scraps left over from the manufacturing process. To do this, a few enterprising companies first collect the used clothing, and then sort and separate them by quality and color. While damaged or soiled fabrics are sorted out to make industrial wiping cloths and other items, any articles of clothing that are not otherwise in a suitable condition to sell in a second-hand shop are shredded to break them down into a fine, linty material called "shoddy."

The shoddy is re-spun back into yarn, and the yarn is then used to make new clothing using traditional sewing and manufacturing methods. The resulting recycled fiber garments typically have little or no dye or chemicals used in their production. The do not require land use or intensive irrigation, therefore no fertilizers or pesticides are needed. Furthermore, for every pound of fiber recycled, the equivalent of a half gallon of gasoline is conserved; and less demand for petroleum products contributes to saving energy!

And these are just a few ways in which apparel made from recycled fabrics helps to positively impact the environment!

Graphic Perspective proudly supports this ecologically-conscious effort by providing apparel made from recycled fabrics.

So next time you, your organization or your company are seeking custom printed apparel or accessories for a function or special event, consider choosing an environmentally friendly alternative - and consider Graphic Perspective; where doing what's right looks good on you!

For more information on recycled fabrics, please visit the Council for Textile Recycling.

For more information about Graphic Perspective, please visit www.graphicperspectiveri.com.