Keith is a friend to many of us here and has been to most of the TSB dinners in Atlantic City. He is not active on the forum, but has helped members before on more than one occasion.
About a month ago there was a freak flood and he lost the shop and had over $200K in damages. He had insurance which is getting out on a technicality (they say it was a sewer backup and not a flood so they are not covering the expenses!!!). His CTS and folder/bager are beyond repair. Lot of the stuff in the shop had to be thrown away due to sewer contamination.
I would like to start a campaign to help Keith out. Any one of us can imagine the horror of losing the shop (OVERNIGHT!) and the 12 years invested in it.
My suggestion is to send the money to his paypal account and send me the information on the amount donated. There is a number of companies that are willing to match our contribution and give store credit in amounts of $100-$5000, but we have to do our part. So far NAZDAR, ACTION ENGINEERING, SHURLOC, RAYONET, SAATI and M&R have committed to helping if we get something going here. Murakami, Techsupport SPS and CCI are looking into it. I have called several other ppl, but have not left the msg and will work on getting more support from the industry. If you are an industry supplier or manufacturer, please contact me directly and let me know what you can do. We are asking for store credit or supplies donation rather than the monetary offerings.
Keith's employees have started a Kickstarter campaign that is not going anywhere as they will not reach the goal and thus even the small amounts RAISED THERE WILL NOT BIG GIVEN TO THEM. I ask that everybody dig deep and think how much would suck to be in Keith's position. Think about losing EVERYTHING you worked on for so many years. He is back up and running as far as some basic equipment, but needs cash flow to help him survive. Please do what you can and remember any donation by us is matched by several companies, so more we give multiple times more he gets. Everything counts, even $5 as by the time suppliers and manufacturers mach it, your $5 can turn into $20!!!
I'll start with $200 from Blue Moon and TheShirtBoard.com will donate another $200. This is a good start, please do what you can!
Following is Keith's PP address so you can donate directly. PLEASE DO NOT DONATE TO THE KICKSTARTER CAMPAIGN, THEY WILL NOT SEE ANY OF THAT MONEY!!! Please use the PayPal address or PM me for assistance if you don't know how to use PayPal.
insaneapparel@yahoo.comHere are the pictures of the mess:
Here's what Keith had to say on the kickstarter campaign:
Despite what you’ve seen on TV…When the storms came there was no relief.
I am Keith Zasowski, owner of Insane Apparel. If you have seen our work, you know we do screen printing, embroidery and make some of the hippest, edgiest coolest stuff you’ll ever see. We love our customers; we love what we do.
When Long Island got hit by a freak rain storm a few weeks ago it knocked us for a loop. It was the heaviest one day rain total in our Island’s history, our shop was flooded, inventory destroyed, machines rendered useless.
I’ve been in this business since I was young. Helping people, serving our customers and helping causes and my community has been my life. Now I am the one who needs help.
When the sun came out after the storm, there were plenty of agencies that rushed in but there’s been no relief in sight. My insurance won’t cover the loss. FEMA hasn’t been heard from, nothing from New York State.
Meanwhile, I have employees to pay, new inventory to buy, people to serve. . . . we just have a cash flow problem caused by the storm and we may have to close without help. That would be 7 valuable Full-Time Long Island jobs lost, we wouldn’t be able to hire the three part time employees we normally employ this season and another small business would bite the dust.
