A Collingwood resident, inspired by the creatives around him and finding himself with a little extra time on his hands, is taking a glass-all-the-way-full approach to pandemic life.
Paul Brown decided to create his own fundraising campaign, calling it Local Love in a Global Glass.
Brown is now over halfway to his goal of raising $2,000 for United Way Simcoe Muskoka, which he is doing so by selling Collingwood-branded beer glasses he designed himself.
Like many others, Brown found himself off work for a few months after mass closures due to COVID-19. With a musician for a wife and an artist for a brother, everyone around Brown was creating.
“I had this overwhelming urge to create something, too,” said Brown.
Brown snapped a photo of the Collingwood Terminals and started playing around with editing software on his computer.
“I was feeling pretty blessed to be in Collingwood with my family and a job to go back to. But I know a lot of other people are really struggling, so I wanted to find a way to give back,” he said.
After a bit of deliberation, Brown settled on the design, with the words ‘Collingwood Withstood’ sprawled across the columns of the Terminals.
“Collingwood is a special place and I feel like, through all of this … people around here all sort of withstood and made it through,” he said.
Brown thought about printing the image on T-shirts, but wanted more of a one-size-fits-all model, so he settled on pint glasses instead. A set of two glasses costs $30, with $20 of each purchase donated to United Way.
“With the glasses, the idea is you buy two and then when this is all over you get a friend to cheers with,” he said.
Brown prepaid for a large shipment of glasses, and said the pile in his garage is slowly diminishing. He has already donated $1,000 to United Way and is looking forward to handing over another $1,000 once the last of the glasses have been sold. Brown is hand-delivering every order.
He liked the idea that United Way had the option to donate directly back into the community he is so thankful for.
“You never have [this] kind of time. So when I did I just thought, I am going to do something with it,” said Brown.
To order glasses for yourself, email Brown at [email protected].
