Prospect manufacture offering signs to show appreciation

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By Jason Levy, Republican-American

Triple Stitch Sportswear is donating lawn signs in Prospect and Wethersfield to spread a message of gratitude to local heroes during the pandemic. –CONTRIBUTED

PROSPECT — Residents of Prospect and Wethersfield will have an opportunity to show their appreciation for their neighbors on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19 and just in time for Easter weekend.

Triple Stitch Sportswear, a manufacturing company in Prospect, will donate yard signs at 10 a.m. Saturday at Prospect Town Green (Center Street and Church Street) and Wethersfield’s Broad Street Green.

Triple Stitch co-owners Joe Commendatore of Prospect and Nicholas D’Eramo of Wethersfield picked their respective hometowns and worked with the mayor’s offices to set it up. Each town will receive about 100 or so signs, which are free and will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis with a limit of one per family. Commendatore said people will be able to pull up in their vehicles, grab a sign and drive away.

Each town will be accepting donations to their respective food banks. In Prospect, donations can be made in the form of a check made out to Prospect Food Bank and mailed to Town Hall or called in to Mayor Robert J. Chatfield’s office at 203-758-4461.

In Wethersfield, donations can be made online at wethersfieldct.gov or by calling 860-721-2977.

“We thought it would be a nice gesture for these people,” Commendatore said. “Whether they do work in hospitals or health care or if they drive a truck delivering cheese, it would be nice to see a little thank you as they drive by, and at the same time donate some money to a good cause.”

Between Triple Stitch, which makes full-line embroidery and distributes promotional products, and their next-door sister company, Hartford Stamp and Sign, which makes signs and rubber stamps, Commendatore and D’Eramo are experienced in making signs.

Triple Stitch has remained open as an essential business, sourcing and distributing masks and sanitizers, and hope to bring the majority of their 20 employees back soon.

“It is not a time for self-promotion,” he said. “We started hiring some people back to do some embroidery. But we also want to do what we can do. Two weeks ago we furloughed everyone and my partner and I have been keeping things going on the phones. We did apply and receive the loan which went through Ion Bank from the stimulus bill. So we have our approval and when we get the actual funds released we should be able to hire back the majority of our staff.”

Commendatore said they had 500 signs made and they are holding on to some of them for other interested parties.

“We’d like to go large-scale if people accept this,” he said. “We put out a message to some of our larger clients and asked them if they would like to get involved.”

The fact that the sign drive is happening the day before Easter wasn’t planned, just fortuitous timing.

“I think we just decided to do it on a Saturday,” Commendatore said. “We didn’t take Easter weekend into consideration. It was just a matter of the signs coming in and we wanted to get them out there as soon as possible.”