Sometimes a story comes along that you simply don’t see coming. This story runs the gamut of emotions. It should make you laugh, cry, feel warmth, compassion, and hope. This is a story about a Life-Size Cut-Out, of which we make at Good Guys Signs on a regular basis.
Given that we’re in the middle of this crazy COVID-19 pandemic, our thought was to personalize the industry-standard name of Cut-Out to Cheer-Up. What we had in our minds was twofold: We cut the price of this product basically in half. We wanted to provide people across the country with the ability to “be with” family and friends that simply isn’t really viable these days. We also wanted to ensure that we could create more sales, to ensure our employees could still have a job during this pandemic and economic crisis. All told, it is our hope that during this uncertain time when Coronavirus has separated so many people, we can provide a little pick-me-up and brighten someone’s day.
Meet Jean Clement, who lives just outside of Chicago. She works in business development for credit unions in the area. And she is a mother. Her son, Joey, recently had a birthday and graduated from Illinois State with a BA degree. Jean decided to celebrate the two events. She planned a surprise party for Joey with an outdoor theme, due to Coronavirus. Jean thought up a fun idea. She got in touch with us and ordered a Cheer-Up of…Joey. When guests arrived on the scene, she recalled, “Everyone had to do a double-take when they saw it (the Cheer-Up) because it was so real looking.”
When Joey showed up, he ironically happened to be wearing the exact same shirt that he had on in the Cheer-Up. He laughed and said he had to change his shirt. He felt like a twin was there. So much more on that shortly.
Jean thought about some fun games played at parties. She had crocheted some dreadlocks, and came up with the idea of “Pin the Dreads on Joey.” They held the festivities outside in a block party format due to COVID, where nearly 200,000 people have lost their lives in this country. Joey engaged in his own ridicule with the game. “He played and had a good time with it,” said his mom.
Before more on Joey, let’s move ahead a few days and about 1,200 miles away in Tampa, Florida. That’s where we, at Good Guys Signs, do business. We were working on production of another Cheer-Up; a young man in a navy uniform. No one thought anything of it, aside from working hard on our craft to make the customer as happy as can be with the finished product.
We then decided to make a video for potential customers to be able to peek behind the scenes as to the process, the machinery, and the precision that goes into making a Cheer-Up. Here is that video. It’s under two minutes long. Enjoy.
We went a step further and decided to reach out to people who ordered or received our Cheer-Ups. We wanted to get a sense of what they thought about the product we provided. But more than that, we wanted to hear their stories. Was the Cheer-Up they got for fun? For emotional reasons? To feel close to family and friends across the country? We reached out to Jean Clement. We spoke with her for about 30 minutes. She shared with us what you read earlier in this piece. But there’s more. This is where things started to get really interesting.
In our discussion, she shared with us that Joey has a twin brother, who couldn’t be at the celebration. The twin brother’s name is Jordan. While he couldn’t be at the party in person, the family did engage him with a FaceTime video call. They showed Jordan the Cheer-Up. He thought it was a great idea and laughed his tail off. He told them, “Mom, you don’t need two Joeys in the world.” As usual, the brothers spent several minutes joking and ribbing each other. Jean related to us that this is very typical, that it’s part of their unique bond.
So, why wasn’t Jordan able to be there on that festive day? Yes, he does live over 2,000 miles away, but that’s not the reason. He resides just outside of San Diego. Jordan is stationed at Camp Pendleton, serving as a Hull Technician with an E4 rank in his 5th year in the navy. Military restrictions on travel prevented him from being with Joey on that special day. Jean was going to see him for his birthday the following week.
He is, in fact, the guy in the naval uniform of whom we made that behind-the-scenes video. When Jean told us about Jordan, we were thunderstruck at the coincidence. It was the very Cheer-Up of Jordan that spawned the idea to reach out to people, and as irony would have it, Jean was the first person we spoke with. The realization that this aligning of the stars came when Jean told us what Joey said to her, “Mom, you’re going out to see Jordan next week. You have to get a Cheer-Up for him, too.” She described how she had a photo of Jordan in uniform saluting, and that’s what she had sent to us for his Cheer-Up. Just then, it clicked for us. The genesis of our idea was based on a twin brother of the lady with whom we were speaking. We sent her the video, asking her to let us know if this was, indeed, Jordan. She wrote us back quickly.
“OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU USED MY SON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am crying!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Share that with the world. Put it on facebook and instagram and I will share!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s one of my best gifts from God!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Thank you so much for sharing.”
Jean ordered a Cheer-Up for Jordan from us and received it two days later in San Diego. Jordan and his wife were very happy to have it. His navy buddies teased him about it, as expected.
Back to Joey. Near the end of our conversation with Jean about him, she really opened up and shared something extremely touching with us. Joey was shot three years ago in Chicago. He nearly died. “He almost didn’t make it,” said his emotional mother. He quit school. He gave up. But he came back with a renewed energy, returned to college, and graduated. “He gave me his diploma. He said it was for me. I had tears in my eyes. This is my heart. The Cheer-Up, things like this that celebrate his life mean the world to me. They’re everything.”
Well said, Jean Clement, mother of twin brothers Joey and Jordan. Thank you.
