News August 25, 2022
The Bright Side: Koozie Group, IMAGEN Brands Donate 2,500 Backpacks
Employees across the suppliers’ four locations volunteered during recent company picnics.
A Top 40 supplier recently continued its commitment to giving back to the community.
In line with its motto to “keep the good going,” Koozie Group (asi/40480), along with IMAGEN Brands (asi/93990), assembled a total of 2,500 backpacks ahead of the school year. Employees packed the bags with items like markers, crayons, pencils and water bottles during barbecues at Koozie’s locations in Clearwater, FL, and Red Wing and Sleepy Eye, MN, as well as IMAGEN’s location in Doniphan, MO.
From left: Weston Holt, environmental, health and safety partner; Trisha Joyce, employee experience and communications specialist; and Annika Larsson, marketing associate, help to pack backpacks at Koozie’s Clearwater location.
Koozie donated 2,000 backpacks to local United Way chapters, while IMAGEN gave 300 backpacks to local families and 200 to employees’ school-age children. Koozie’s summer picnics also featured dunk tanks and raised $3,000 for local families in need.
“I want to thank all our employees who came out and made the barbecues such a success,” said Trisha Joyce, employee experience and communications specialist. “It was special to see our incredible, hardworking team members socializing and having fun together while also giving back to local causes that [our] sites have been supporting for such a long time.”
Koozie Group acquired IMAGEN Brands in 2020. In 2021, Koozie Group donated more than $250,000 to over 100 nonprofit organizations as part of its “Keep it. Give it.” program. Through the end of this year, the company is giving 5% of all writing instrument sales to United Way regional chapters in Florida and Minnesota. In June, the supplier donated $1,500 to Briana Larson, an employee at the Red Wing facility who represented her home state of Wisconsin at the 2022 Special Olympics USA Games in Orlando. Koozie also imprinted and distributed water bottles for each member of the Wisconsin team.
Earlier this summer, IMAGEN pledged 1% of stock plush sales to 4 Paws for Ability, which trains service dogs on a purpose-built campus in Ohio.
With reported 2021 North American promo product revenue of $300 million, Koozie Group ranked sixth on Counselor’s most recent list of the largest suppliers in the industry.