Pencils.com Helps Japanese Disaster Victims

We were greatly disturbed to see the tragic events and human suffering resulting from the earthquake and tsunami last week in Japan. The devastation caused by one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded is quite simply staggering. To do our part we will be donating 5% of Pencils.com revenues for the Months of March and April to the Red Cross for Japanese Tsunami and Earthquske aid.

Pencils.com and particularly it's parent organization California Cedar Products Company has a long history of business relationships in Japan over the past 50 to 60 years. This spans from supplying cedar and basswood pencil slats to all the Japanese industry participants to the more recent development and production of our Palomino and Palomino Blackwing pencils. As a multi-generational family business these relationships often extend to personal relationships with principle business owners and management in these companies. We were very happy to learn all of our dear friends and associates in Japan came through last weeks terrible events safely.

Certainly there are and will be many challenges for the pencil industry and the country as a whole facing both the tragic loss of so many countrymen, the potential threat of radiation exposure and the inconveniences of transportation and power supply disruptions and of the overall rebuilding process. Economic conditions are bound to deteriorate in the near term and this will certainly have tremendous impact on the lives of many Japanese citizens. As a company with strong long term trading ties to Japan we are committed to supporting our customer and supplier relationships to our best ability and helping them rebuild their economy as best we can through our ongoing relationships.

Support the Writers Pencil Campaign

Tired of watching reruns already on late night talk shows? Worried your weekly favorite shows will soon be headed to reruns?

Our associates at United Hollywood blog have launched a new campaign to promote the cause of the Writers Guild of America and guess what … It involves pencils. Titled “Pencils 2 Media Moguls” the campaign is intended to send masses of pencils to the CEOs of major television media companies as a show of solidarity with the writers guild. Here at California Republic we have collaborated with United Hollywood to supply pencils to be used for this campaign. Each $1 dozen pack of pencils purchased via this Pencils 2 Media Moguls link here will be forwarded on by United Hollywood on your behalf to these CEOs. The expectation is that the pencils will eventually be donated to support young writers in disadvantaged schools and other education prorams.

Two days into the campaign as of Sunday evening over 156,000 pencils have already been purchased. What better symbol of writing and solidarity than sending pencils. As the writers themselves are saying they are putting them down until they get a fair deal. The goal is to reach over 1 million pencils sent in for this campaign. So show your support for writing, the writers and ultimately the children who will benefit by receiving these pencils by buying a few packs here and forward this link to a friend. If you buys a few packs and have suggestions of deserving schools or programs where the Moguls can donate the pencils please forward these along to United Hollywood.

Finally, some of my readers might ask why WoodChuck, an avowed free trader would support such a union campaign. Of course the children as end recipients of the pencils will benefit from this campaign, but there is also a historical reason as well. My maternal grandfather Lawrence E. Watkin (wow, didn’t know he had a Wikipedia page until tonight), was once a WGA member and worked as a Hollywood writer mainly throughout the 1950s. That is until he was fired by Disney Co. when the writers were replaced during a former strike. Of course, I am not altogether altruistic as we are generating some sales for these unbranded pencils which as standard round advertising type pencils are representative of our Spangle Decorator basic pencil writing quality but are finished in standard lacquer without imprint or decoration.