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When I set out to find a way of commemorating Scribbles 40^th Anniversary with all of you, little did I know what a phenomenal project it would turn out to be. 


Initially I was looking for something to hand out to friends during Pride in the Park, but soon decided that whatever I came up with would absolutely have to go out to everyone who’s ever been a part of Scribbles over the past 4 decades. 

“It’s all or nothing” I repeatedly told myself, “You can’t leave anyone out”.

My first idea was to look into how much it would cost to have Scribbles logo put on rubber bracelets. You know...the ones you get at fundraisers, major events or for worthy causes. Something like that with our logo on it might be nice to give out. This notion was quickly shot down when I started pricing them. It would simply be too expensive to have a company create these bracelets and many of the quotes I received mentioned that only one colour could be used, which meant our red and gold logo wouldn’t be quite right. It was at this point when I pretty much resigned the notion of distributing any type of gift items.

A few weeks later, I had to drop off a parcel at my local Purolator outlet located within a nearby Staples store. I had no other items I needed to pick up at the office supply chain but I decided since I was already there, why not stroll through the aisles and check things out.

Within a few minutes, I found myself in an area where they sold keychains. One type of keychain was a plastic tag with a small piece of paper on which you’d likely write what the keys were for (like “shed”, “locker”, “house” etc.) They were sold in packages of 20 and there were in 5 different colours, red, black, yellow, green and blue.

I swear a light bulb suddenly flashed brightly above my head. 

“What if I took the little pieces of paper out of the keychains and replaced them with the Scribbles logo?” I pondered. That would be quite doable and the price was considerably less than the bracelets were going to be. Plus the multi-colours would tie in perfectly with Pride.

Initially I purchased 3 packages. I’d test my idea and if all went well I would then buy some more. It was fairly easy for me to execute this project. The trickiest part was calculating what size to make the logos, before printing sheets of them and cutting them to fit.

Pleased by the way the “test units” turned out, I ordered more colourful keychains for a grand total of 300 (almost all of which are now accounted for.)

Over the following few months I gave out keychains to some of you in person. But there’s many others who I don’t see as often as I’d like or who live relatively far from Scribbles headquarters in St. Catharines. To get keychains to these friends would involve mailing them.

As I had done when I purchased the first few packages of keychains, I would need to do some testing with shipping methods. I took a few envelopes to my postal outlet. One had an “assembled” keychain in it and another had a keychain that would require the receiver to put it together. The postal outlet clerk determined that both assembled and unassembled keychains could be sent at regular letter rate but the ones that were in two pieces worked best.

Although most Scribbles pals reside across Canada, we do have some special friends south of the border. 

The clerk advised me that keychains sent to the US would be required to go in a padded envelope... First Class no less!  And what would the rate be, pray tell? $7.29 per package. Pretty steep considering the keychains come in at a cost of less than 50 cents each. The solution? Friends residing outside Canada would be welcome to receive a keychain if they were willing to help with the shipping fees. Some were extremely generous with their contribution, sending Scribbles way more than required to mail them a keychain.

My anxiety level rose a week or so later.I had returned to the postal outlet to buy stamps where the same clerk that had helped with my test envelopes was working. I gave her a Scribbles keychain and told her this is was what I was mailing to everyone. Although she had told me during my first visit that the envelopes would go at letter rate, today she stated they probably wouldn’t go through the mail this way. Needless to say, I wasn’t too amused. This was precisely why I had done the test envelopes in the first place, so why was she scaring me like this now?

I went home and stamped 70 envelopes before putting them all in a mailbox. 

Would they arrive at their destinations? I’d have to wait and see. 

Fortunately that wait would not be long. Three days later, I received the first confirmation. It was from DCT actor and Scribbles friend, Julie Turner. She messaged to tell me she had just received her keychain and it was accompanied by a photo of her holding it. I was thrilled. The next day many more friends messaged to say they too had gotten their keychains, some as far away as British Columbia (way to go Canada Post.)

And there you have it. The keychain caper from conception to arriving to your home. Although I kept my costs as low as possible, all tolled this little project did add up. But seeing your faces light up when you received your keychains, in person or by mail, made it worth every penny spent.

Thanks for being a part of the Scribbles family all these years and happy 40^th to us all.

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