U.S. Postal Service plans 1998 hospice care stamp
U.S. Postal Service plans 1998 hospice care stamp
50 million opportunities to promote hospice
The design for a planned "Hospice Care" commemorative U.S. postage stamp was unveiled at the National Hospice Organization (NHO) annual meeting in Atlanta last October. The 32-cent Hospice Care stamp, portraying an orange and yellow butterfly flying over a house and meadow, will be issued in November 1998, although an exact date for the dedication ceremony has not been set.
Postmaster General Marvin T. Runyon told conferees that more than 50 million stamps will be printed and will be carried by every post office in the country. "We want you and other Americans to display them prominently on your cards and letters, where they will raise the visibility of hospice care in homes, offices and health care facilities around the nation," Runyon said. NHO is working with the Postal Service to develop plans for events related to its release.
"The butterfly is a symbol of spiritual release, a positive metaphor for the last transition of life," and is meant to symbolize life’s journey to its final stage, Phil Jordan, the stamp’s designer, explains in the current issue of NHO’s Hospice Magazine. He adds that three of his wife’s relatives died at Hospice of Northern Virginia in Falls Church. (See copy of the preliminary stamp design, above.)
The hospice postage stamp continues the Postal Service’s recent tradition of highlighting important social and health issues, such as breast cancer, AIDS, and the environment. The idea for doing a hospice stamp was suggested to Runyon by Susan Simons, board member of Alive Hospice in Nashville, TN, at a 1996 July 4th barbecue, Hospice Magazine reports.
NHO believes that the stamp could provide a great opportunity for raising public awareness, as did the breast cancer and AIDS stamps before it. NHO is now offering lapel pins and key chains with the stamp design for sale through its store [(800) 646-6460] and is creating a tool kit with advice for local promotional activities, as well as an ad hoc advisory committee to help promote the stamp, says David Schneider, NHO’s director of membership services.
"We’re working with the Postal Service and hospice programs to build a program of national scale to engage the media around the stamp’s release and to use that as an opportunity to increase the depth of understanding about hospice," he adds. "We want to do this on as large a scale as possible."
Licensing and permission guidelines for educational materials, tee shirts, mugs, pins and the like have been issued by the Postal Service. Send requests to Kelly Spinks, Licensing Program Administrator, Licensing Department, U.S. Postal Service, 475 L’Enfant Plaza SW, Room 4474E, Washington, DC 20260.
Or call the Licensing Hotline at (212) 333-9096. The Postal Service’s licensing agency, Hamilton Products, Inc., has a list of authorized Hospice Care Stamp product vendors. Contact them at 1700 Broadway, 9th Fl., New York, NY 10019.
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