- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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Each year the Lansing-based company 'the ADminders' invites clients to look at promotional products they sell to businesses and organizations. This year ADminders owner Janet Keefe decided to feature eco-friendly products on Earth Day, and she took over the Museum of the Earth for the day to do so."The first thing we decided was to feature earth products," she says. "Then we decided to do it on Earth Day. We searched all ofver the county for a place to do it, and we thought of the Museum of the Earth. They were available, so we rented it exclusively for the day. It couldn't have been a better match."
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Keefe says she got the idea at a national show for promotional product companies in Las Vegas this year where she and her staff were overwhelmed with the diversity of earth-friendly products that are now available. Dottie's ice Cream provided a cake. About 100 clients were invited to attend the show, as well as representatives from the Tompkins County Solid Waste Department.
She invited her suppliers to send representatives to the show to explain how their products work, and why they are friendly to the earth. They displayed a wide variety of products including flashlights powered by a crank instead of batteries, shirts made out of soy, pens made out of corn, polar fleece products made from recycled water bottles, shirts made from recycled scraps from making other shirts, and polo shirts made from bamboo. "It's a quickly renewable resource," she said. "It takes four to five years to grow bamboo, and its a very soft, strong fiber."
(Left to right) Director of Museum Operations Alicia Reynolds,
the ADminders' Janet Keefe, Lanco Corporation's Mark Whitner
"The trend is now becoming more of the norm, where folks are looking to be more conscious of their consumables," says Lanco Corporation's Mark Whitner. "It's no longer a fad. It's becoming more of a lifestyle."
ADminders, located in Lansingville, caters to organizations and companies who want to promote themselves by giving away items branded with their logos and/or message. The company offers thousands of items from a variety of suppliers, and has been operating in Lansing for 21 years. When Keefe approached the suppliers to participate in the Earth Day event, they jumped at the chance.
"When ADminders asked us to participate we jumped at it," Whitner says. "We're glad to be here."
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