Vancouver Flag Shop - Causes We Support

The Flag Shop Vancouver donated this 36" x 72" custom printed polyknit flag to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank. It's our way to say Thank You to one of the greatest charities in the city!

The Flag Shop Vancouver has been a supporter of the George Derby Centre and their "Pledge a Flag" campaign since 2013. We produced all of these custom Canada stick flags for the George Derby Centre. These custom printed 4" x 6" "George Derby Centre" Canada flags are weather-proof, produced by The Flag Shop Vancouver specifically for this purpose.

The Flag Shop Vancouver donated a Bowflag to the annual Mike Gibson Memorial Golf Tournament, which first started in June 2011, following the death of Vera Gibson's son Mike and his girlfriend Kelly.

Vera visited The Flag Shop Vancouver in May, 2015, to inquire about pricing for a custom flag to promote the tournament. As Vera was talking to the sales team, President Susan Braverman happened to be walking by and stopped to introduced herself.

Vera described the meeting afterward: "Susan said that she had overheard us talking and felt that The Flag Shop could help us out by producing the flag for very little, if any, cost. She said that the story touched her and that the part that really resonated with her was that I didn't come across as a victim, despite the huge loss of my son and Kelly. As I walked to my car, I felt as if I was floating, and that feeling lasted a very long time. I can still hardly believe the spontaneous generosity I experienced".

Since 2011, Mike Gibson Memorial Golf Tournament has raised $15,529 for the Canucks Place Children’s Hospice!

To read the full story, please visit our blog.

The Flag Shop Vancouver donated 1,000 Anti-Bullying paper stick flags to I AM SOMEONE’S Walk '2TALK' Rally in Port Coquitlam on February 22, 2015.

In this picture, Greg Moore, Mayor of Port Coquitlam and his wife Erin show off our Anti-Bullying paper flags and silicone bracelet along with The Flag Shop’s national business development manager Kevan Crozier.

To learn more about our Anti-Bullying initiatives and available Anti-Bullying products, please visit:

www.antibullyingflag.ca

March 13, 2014 was the anniversary of Chris Hadfield becoming the first Canadian Commander of the International Space Station, and the day Cambie Secondary School in Richmond became the first school in Metro Vancouver to make contact with the International Space Station via amateur radio.

The Flag Shop is proud to have provided free flag rentals for the Canada, USA, Russia, and Japan flags displayed on the stage backdrop for this momentous event.

No More Cruelty, an animal welfare group was founded by Crystal (top left), our marketing manager at The Flag Shop head office. Together with her sister Rosemary (top right), they advocate and assist with various animal rescue efforts by coordinating with various volunteers and rescue groups in Taiwan and Canada.

Two 24" x 33.5" custom banners, digitally printed on Coast Display, were donated by The Flag Shop to support her animal rescue efforts.

The above picture was taken at the Taipei International Airport in March 2014, with seven rescued dogs ready to fly to Canada where they had new homes waiting for them.

Our President, Susan Braverman, is a former public school teacher so she knows exactly what goes into making the school environment both inviting and educational for the students. She also understands that teachers and school districts have limited budgets to cover their expenses every year. This is the reason The Flag Shop Vancouver offers a 15% discount to all public school educators and school districts. We believe in supporting public education and teachers in whatever way we can.

If you are an educator or representing a school district, please contact The Flag Shop Vancouver for more information.

We recently made custom flags for the Canadian Fallen Firefighters Foundation at a deep discount. They are celebrating their 10th anniversary as an organization dedicated to memorialize Canadian firefighters who had lost their lives in the line of duty. In addition to honouring their service, they also provide financial assistance to the families of fallen firefighters. We are proud to continue our support of them.

In March, we made a donation to the UBC Properties Trust team when they were fundraising for the event "Bowl for Big Brothers Classic".

In the end, they raised almost $1500 for the event which means that they received the 5-Course Tasting Menu for 2 at Diva at the Met for their team.

Congratulations to all the teams who participated and made a difference!

We love dogs! Our Business Development Manager recently added to the pack that comes to our office by adopting a dog named Lizzy.

As a way of saying thank you to Dachshund Rescue Team for matching her with her new friend and facilitating the adoption process, we designed and printed a retractable banner for them.

Angela at Dachshund Rescue Team will be using it for different trade shows and events that they attend to spread awareness for their organization.

The Flag Shop Vancouver donated a flag to the One Epic Journey team who participated in the June 2012 Ride to Conquer Cancer that goes from Vancouver to Seattle. Team captain Bill deGroot got some of the staff to pose with the flag before it left the building. This 36" x 60" was printed on Classic Dacron.

One Epic Journey carried the flag across the start and finish lines of the event as well as flying it at their campsite between legs.

When Wayne Cho decided to raise awareness about mental illness (specifically anxiety and bipolar disorders), he did it with the activity that has helped him get a handle on both in his own life - running.

With his project Love World Run, he completed a 8,200 km run across Canada in 2009, before embarking on a 7,500 km run across the USA that wrapped up in November 2012.

Up next - the world. After having completed his cross-country run of the US, he will start up again in London, England and make his way to Sydney, Australia.

This retractable banner was donated to him by The Flag Shop Vancouver to show our support for his cause, and we wish him the best of luck in reaching his ambitious goal!

As beautiful as our printed textiles are after they roll off of the printing press, they require finishing before they are ready to go. The finishing process along with other sewing projects (like appliquéd flags) generates scrap material which then piles up in our production area. We donated some of our extra scraps to SFU’s Banner Bags program which put them to good use by educating high school students on environmental friendliness.

In their sewing classes, the students repurposed old street banners and other donated scrap materials into bags as well as fashionable clothing.

Since 2008, their actions have saved 1,100+ pounds of nylon from landfills, prevented 27,000 pounds of CO2 emissions and conserved enough electricity to power an average Vancouver home for 40 months.

In addition to donating the scrap material, we also printed a banner especially for them to use.

Jennifer Hao, organizer for BYSN, phoned us to find out about getting a banner printed for the Burnaby Youth Sustainability Network – a community project she had spearheaded on her own after having helped her school win the Canada's Greenest School contest in 2010. She didn't know exactly what she was looking for, but fortunately, she got to speak to Susan who was working after hours and decided to donate the banner to the budding civic organizer. Printed on Echotex®, the 46" x 96" banner shows off the logo of the organization and was used at their events including Do It Green Burnaby 2011.

The Flag Shop founded the Banner to Bags Program in the early 1990s, and worked with Coast Mental Health to develop their program Sewing with Heart, where individuals are trained in sewing as a means to re-enter the workforce.

In 2009, Susan and Melanie Conn along with Coast Mental Health, Devco, the Women’s Economic Council and EMBERS founded Common Thread which provides job skills to individuals who thrive in a more flexible workplace environment by training them to sew used street banners into reusable bags.

We allocate a portion of our production facilities to Common Thread at no charge, and we encourage our customers to have Common Thread "repurpose" their street banners into bags, once their banners are no longer needed.

Also, congratulations to Susan for winning the Social Enterprise Top Hero Award! Susan was nominated by Melanie for her work in supporting Common Thread and helping them grow their social enterprise.