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Westlake firm shows its
Like most American citizens, Paula Weiser wanted to do her part for the New York City disaster relief effort. Driving back from a meeting in Ventura two days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the 36-year-old owner of a Westlake Village printing company decided she would make a patriotic poster to donate to local businesses—not a big deal, just something to put in a few windows and storefronts. She made a call to her office and told her employees to begin brainstorming. Today, phones are ringing off the hook over the poster. The White House is calling, and Time Magazine and Newsweek Magazine, and Paramount Pictures. More than 60,000 copies have come off the presses after an initial run of 5,000.
The 17 x 22-inch poster with the words "United We Stand" against a backdrop of red, white and blue has become almost as big a symbol in the fight against terrorism as the American flag itself. "It was just word of mouth," said Weiser, owner of Weiser Litho. "At first I thought they were so beautiful I said print a little bit more and then I had them delivered to fire, police stations, schools and government offices. Then the rest just snowballed." Artist Thomas Nance designed the poster within half an hour of receiving Weiser’s directive. Within two hours, the poster was rolling off the presses. A customer put the word out on the Internet and a little later CNN arrived at Weiser’s shop on La Baya Drive to shoot a feature. Stories about the poster appeared Monday on CBS Channel 2. Fox television did a report, too. "I passed some out to local businesses on Friday for their window just to show our local community and the next thing you know we had, we had … Jay Leno," said Weiser, understandably out of breath. For now, the company plans to print about 100,000. Sales of the poster already have generated $10,000 for the American Red Cross. Customers receive the first three posters for free, then pay one dollar for each additional poster to cover printing costs, according to Kimberly Jackson, a Weiser Litho employee. Actor Gary Sinese stopped by to pick up several copies. Orders also arrived from Dream Works, Sony Pictures and Warner Bros. EMI-Capitol Records plans to use the poster as the cover for a benefit CD, similar to the "We Are the World" project. "The word that I would use for this is it’s overwhelming, it’s awesome; the people who’ve come in and the stories we’ve heard," Jackson said. "We’ve had World War II veterans come in here in tears." The company’s 19 employees are equally touched and taking great delight in the contribution they’ve made, Jackson said. "People have a true appreciation for what we’re doing. People really believe we do this because we care, and we really do." |
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