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International Friendship Day
International Friendship Day is celebrated every year on July 30th, and yes, you got us, this one was created by Hallmark! Well, by our illustrious founder Joyce Hall anyway, and it’s been going since 1958!
Since 2011 this special day dedicated to friendship has even been recognised by the United Nations! Yes, July 30th is now the official date to share our gratitude for those amazing relationships that are truly life-changing, and to acknowledge that friendships between different cultures, races and countries can promote peace and unity across the globe.
But then, at Hallmark, emotional connections have always been incredibly important to us, and we really do love helping people find a way to celebrate them. Friends are there for us through so many of life’s big moments, bringing us comfort, joy, love and so much more, and they deserve to be reminded of how wonderful they are, not just on Friendship Day, but every other day of the year too! So, if you’ve got a friend that you’d like to share some love with, why not take a look through our collection, and let them know how much they mean.
Of course, International Friendship Day is also the perfect time for us to celebrate and share a little insight into one of our most beloved brands… Forever Friends!
Cute, cuddly and comforting, Forever Friends offers a way to share love, support and happiness, along with a little bit of kind-hearted fun! Embodying the care and positivity that are inherent in friendships and providing people with the right words exactly when they need them.
Forever Friends has been through a range of different design styles, and appeared on many different products, over the years, but one thing has always remained the same – the focus on the importance of friends and family and sharing emotional connections.
Created in 1987, by artist Deborah Jones, and originally produced by greeting card publisher Andrew Brownsword, the loveable, illustrated bears became part of the Hallmark family in 1994, since when we’ve been proudly sharing the love through greeting cards, plush bears, gift wrap and more! We even have a brand-new range of Augmented Reality cards about to launch which means you can bring the adorable bear to life right in front of your eyes!
Finally, in honour of International Friendship Day 2023, our very own Writing Director, Emma Bragg, visited Leeds West Academy to lead a writing workshop, celebrating the importance of friendship, for students from the local community. Six members of the school’s anti-bullying team were selected to attend the workshop and they each also invited a friend along to take part too. It was an amazing afternoon of positivity and fun with lots of writing and talking about friendships.
As a thank you for attending, each pupil received a Forever Friends goody bag filled with Friendship cards!
