HACKENSACK, NJ / UTICA, NY, September 10, 2009 – In what may signal a new trend in non-profit operations, The Central Association for the Blind & Visually Impaired (CABVI) is now playing the lead role in servicing clients of the award-winning Greening the Cleaning® institutional products for another non-profit, The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center®.
Under the joint agreement, CABVI accepts customer orders, fills jugs on state-of-the-art equipment, and ships cases of the environmentally responsible cleaning products from its warehouses in Utica, N.Y. CABVI personnel also handle customer service, and serves as a master distributor for other organizations seeking to do the same. CABVI has been a distributor of the Environmental Center's Greening the Cleaning products since 2007 and supplies about 100 government offices, universities and school districts throughout the state. Purchases help employ more than 70 people who are blind and visually impaired in filling, packaging, distribution and customer service operations.
Filling orders for Greening the Cleaning® products is just one way The Central Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired is helping another non-profit, The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center®, meet its goals.
"We considered other eco-friendly product lines, and we wanted to team with an organization whose primary mission is
people rather than profit," said CABVI CEO Rudy D'Amico. "This makes a real difference, especially as we reach for new opportunities to grow and help other non profits and we hope to duplicate this success for other distributors and non-profits around the country that want to handle Greening the Cleaning® products, beginning with other organizations for the blind and visually impaired.”
Ms. Imus is a national best selling author. Her latest book in the Green This! series is The Essential Green You!, Easy Ways to Detox Your Diet, Your Body and Your Life. Growing Up Green: Baby and Child Care, the second volume in the Green This! series, is an essential parent-friendly guide to raising a healthy child in our increasingly toxic environment. Her other bestsellers are Green This!: Greening Your Cleaning, the first in the series, and Imus Ranch: Cooking for Kids & Cowboys.
Ms. Imus is also co-founder and co-director of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer (imusranchfoods.com), an authentic 4,000 acre working cattle ranch in northern New Mexico, which provides the experience of the American cowboy to children suffering from cancer and various blood diseases, as well as to children who have lost a brother or sister to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).
Recognized in 2006 by Governor George Pataki, Deirdre Imus and the Environmental Center helped usher in "Green Cleaning" Executive Orders in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that require state agencies to reduce or eliminate the use of toxic cleaning agents. Her testimony before City Hall in New York City also led to new "green cleaning" maintenance procedures at schools.
Traditional cleaning products may contain endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, carcinogens as well as ingredients that irritate the respiratory system. Greening the Cleaning products meet or exceed the Green Seal, Environmental Choice, ISO 9002 and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design requirements for new and existing buildings. (Greening the Cleaning Product Standards)
Greening the Cleaning means eliminating to the greatest extent possible, all cleaning agents containing hazardous ingredients and replacing them with naturally-derived ingredients with the least level of toxicity. One hundred percent of all profits from the institutional products go to The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center® supporting education and research to identify, control and ultimately prevent toxic exposures in the environment that threaten our children's health.
Inspired by the award-winning institutional program, a household line of Greening the Cleaning (GTC) products is available in stores nationwide, as well as from Imus Ranch Foods. One hundred percent of all profits from the retail line go to the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer (imusranchfoods.com, a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit.
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Media Contacts:
Bonnie Eskenazi
The Deirdre Imus Environmental Health Center
551-996-8071
Jessica Watson, jessicaw@cabvi.org
Business Development and Marketing Manager at CABVI
507 Kent Street, Utica, NY 13501
315-797-2233