On or about June 23, 2014, the new director of the American School for the Deaf, Jeff Raven, made a budget-driven decision to close the student run print shop PrintWorks. The print shop was a wonderful resource, which provided deaf students with a quality work experience, while providing non-profit and small businesses with quality and competitively pricedprinting. To lose this resource would be an unnecessary tragedy for the deaf and hearing communities alike.

PrintWorks, to my knowledge,has never beenaggressively marketed and in fact remained virtually unknown to most businesses while simultaneously being praised by its clients.I have made the suggestion, by letter to Mr. Raven, that he reopen PrintWorks and instead work on an aggressive, student assistedmarketing campaign to bring attention and much needed ongoingrevenue to the shop.Revenue gained from PrintWorks goes to directly benefitthe American School for the Deaf, which means that in supporting the shop you are supporting the deaf community innumerous ways.

These types of issues are easily overlooked because the long-term damage is not clearly evident. However, so many good programs like these are shut down only to be praised much later as yet another lost bright spot in human history. There is still time to save this particular bright spot. Please help me in getting message to Mr. Raven that he has made a terrible mistake and encourage him to correct his course of action.Jeff based his decision on the upcoming budget andI truly understand and empathize his particular position. But what Mr. Raven seemingly fails to understand, is thatPrintWorks, when properly and aggressively marketed, may easilybe the single factor insaving the school from ever having to rid itself of a valuable resource again.

Thank you for your attention to this cause. And I thank you in advance forlending a few clicks (and perhaps a few keystrokes) towards a greater good thatmay outlive us all.