Reviving the Grindstone Legacy: A Conversation with Kim and Taylor Gerbinski
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We’d like to introduce Kim and Taylor Gerbinski, long-time Grindstone enthusiasts and community entrepreneurs. In 2019, they set out to revive the original Grindstone clothing line their family had cherished years ago. We had the pleasure of speaking with them and asked a few questions.
What made you decide to do a line of Grindstone Clothing?
Our family still had a few of the 80’s sweatshirts kicking around our cabin, that we wore regularly. We talked about how fun it would be to bring some of these retro items back to Grindstone. Originally we were just going to design and order some sweatshirts for ourselves. After speaking to some of our friends, we realized there was a much larger want for the clothing that just our cabin. It was important that if we were going to take this project on that we provided quality products and reasonable prices, so that our community could keep supporting us yar over year!
Where did you get the inspiration and designs for the clothing?
I have a three ¼ zip sweatshirt sitting in my closet, and Uncle Don always sports his retro Grindstone hat. We put those two items together and decided to bring items back in their full glory, upside down birds and all! Fortunately my husband is handy in Photoshop. We were able to take a picture of the logo on my old sweatshirt and he manipulated it so that we had a high resolution file to use for production!
I understand the profits from the sale of the clothing are used for park enrichment, can you tell us a bit more about that?
Yes, Grindstone Clothing proudly donates all profits back to the cottage community. When my husband and I started this fun project we simply wanted to bring some fun and joy to Grindstone, while contributing to the improvement of the park. Over the last 5 years we have happily donated $5,000 back to the Grindstone Cottage Owners Association, and some of those funds went directly to building the play structure at Blacks Point Beach.
And finally, what was the most popular item you have sold?
I think our most popular item has been the “original logo” hoodie. Nothing says Grindstone more than those 3 trees in front of the sun with upside down birds in the distance. If you know a Grindstoner you think should be featured, email [email protected]