In October of 2014, two friends in Austin, Texas combined their love for community and their creativity – all rooted in their faith in God – to start a business called Card My Yard. It seemed the ideal name for their company which, through their own legwork, would place bigger-than-life size greetings and congratulatory messages in the yards of local families.

 

In January of 2017, two friends in Bridgeport had a conversation about the same business. One personally knew someone who had launched Card My Yard in one of the 40-plus cities to which Austin’s Amy Arnold and Jessica Stanley’s business had quickly spread.

 

“It was Sarah Dodson who called me and told me about her friend who had started a Card My Yard business and that she loves it and thought it was super fun,” said Jenny Starkey-Reed. “She said she immediately thought of me because I like to be creative and decorate friends’ houses when they are celebrating something special.”

 

Reed found it interesting, but like Dodson thought she might, she also thought it as a pretty crazy idea that she would actually become involved in the business. Reed was already employed full-time as a painting instructor at The Sanctuary/Starving Artist business on Bridgeport’s Main Street, where she put her background in graphic design and talent with various mediums to good use. She was also very involved in Simpson Elementary PTA, having chaired – among other events – the school’s fall festival fundraiser. But all of those factors played into the reason why the greeting card company was a good fit for Reed.

 

“When I looked into it, it sounded like it would be pretty fun,” she said. “So I called Amy Arnold and she told me that in the three years since she started the business, she had kept really busy and expanded.”

 

She also told Reed that although the business had been established in a handful of states, West Virginia was not one of them.

After talking with her employer and her family – and some community members who said they would likely be interested in the service - Reed decided to add giant lawn greetings to her list of creative pursuits.

 

“At first I was a little nervous about doing this in a small town, but after I thought more about it, Bridgeport as the perfect place,” she said.

The UPS truck has already delivered several boxes of lawn stakes to her Bridgeport address and soon, giant colorful letters – several of each letter in the alphabet – will arrive too. With them and the various accent pieces - like stars, birthday cakes, footballs and baseballs – to name a few – Reed will be able to custom-create gigantic greetings of her customers’ choice.

 “I’ll be able to decorate lawns in a 30-mile radius,” said Reed, who will use her Main Street workplace as her base of operations.

To book a Card My Yard greeting, prospective customers can access the Card My Yard Web site, choose a package for their jumbo greeting and indicate their location. Orders placed from the Bridgeport area will be directed to Reed, who will create the jumbo greeting, set it up and remove it after 24 hours. In addition to anniversaries, new arrivals, birthdays, sporting accomplishments and many more occasions, Reed said the lawn greetings should prove to be perfect for community, school and athletic events too.

 

“I think about schools for book fairs, fall festivals and all sorts of things,” she said. “I know signs for those kinds of events can be really expensive and this would be fun because it can be personalized each time instead of buying something and use it once.”

 

Reed hopes to be up and running by graduation season. In the meantime, visit the Card My Yard Web site – to which she, her husband Steve and daughter Kaylee – are represented. She also invites members of the community to visit her Facebook page HERE.