Customer Spotlight: Feminist Bird Club of Jersey City
Celebrating the birds of Jersey City with an inclusive club!
Rick Cundiff
We love to feature our great customers each month, and are always happy to celebrate special events with them. As part of our celebration of Women’s History Month, we focus this month’s spotlight on the Feminist Bird Club of Jersey City [New Jersey].
The club is a local chapter of an international organization dedicated to promoting inclusivity in birding and fundraising for environmental and social justice causes. “We provide a safe opportunity for people who aren’t usually represented in birding to connect to and access the natural world,” said chapter co-founder Harriet “Harri” Bailey.
“We run walks and events in and around Jersey City so people can experience the supreme birding opportunities we have in the most densely populated state in the nation,” she said. “It’s been wonderful over these past 6 years to see how birds, nature and staring really hard at leaves can bring us together.”
The club creates a unique custom patch each year to sell for fundraising. For the past five years, the club has counted on TJM’s Patches4Less division for 3” embroidered patches. Our experienced, talented staff gives the club maximum design flexibility.
“We wanted a way people could show their support for birds, Jersey City and the club in a cost-inclusive way,” Bailey said. “TJM’s digitizing service and patient tweaking of our designs meant we could work with artists of any medium.”
“Our events are always free to attend, so we sell patches to raise money for trip leaders, materials, binoculars and transport,” Bailey said.
The design is unique to the club’s location.
“Each year we create a patch featuring a bird that we’ve seen at one of our events,” Bailey said. “The bird is decided by an Instagram competition and we enlist a local artist to design the patch. Our only requirements are the bird and some element of Jersey City but other than that they’re free to go wild, so we’ve had all kinds of designs.
This year the bird is a Painted Bunting, an incomparably beautiful bird with all the colors of the rainbow,” she continued. “It’s an unusual bird for this part of the U.S. and an incredibly rare visitor in the winter – they’re supposed to be way down south: Florida, Cuba and the Bahamas.
He stopped over at Harsimus Cemetery [a Jersey City historic cemetery] last year for four months. and we were stunned when he came back again this year. He is quite the celebrity here, with people driving for hours to catch a glimpse, so he must’ve liked the attention.”
Our outstanding customer service keeps the club coming back to TJM, Bailey said.
“The personal communication from your team who are always keen to help even with our small production,” she said. “The artwork digitizing process, you always manage to capture the feathers and scenery well with the stitch options. Delivery is fast, and we really do appreciate you working with us on the price.”
Club members and the public appreciate the patches.
“They absolutely love them! People proudly send us photos of where they’ve attached them, and we’ve sold out every batch,” Bailey said. “Thanks to all the team at TJM, I hope we’ve inspired you to go birding!”
Thank you so much Harri, for your continued confidence in TJM. We look forward to continuing to serve the Feminist Bird Club of Jersey City for years to come!
For more information:
Instagram: fbc.jc
Rick Cundiff
Content Director, Blogger
Rick Cundiff spent 15 years as a newspaper journalist before joining TJM Promos. He has been researching and writing about promotional products for more than 10 years. He believes in the Oxford comma, eradicating the word "utilize," and Santa Claus.