DaySpring Cards will celebrate the gift company's 40th anniversary Friday, June 24, at its headquarters in Siloam Springs, Ark.

The event—featuring current and former employees, retirees from the company and community leaders—will include tours of the facility, messages, music and videos.

"We are thankful for our heritage and we want to honor our founders, Hallmark and our associates who have given us a strong foundation," said James Barnett, president of DaySpring. "We are fortunate to have a parent company like Hallmark who understands and supports our business. At DaySpring, our motivation has always been ministry, our method is business, and our message has been and will always be Jesus."

According to the 2011 Harris Poll EquiTrend survey, DaySpring was ranked as the second leading greeting-card brand of the year, trailing only Hallmark.

Begun as a small commercial print shop in Covina, Calif., in 1971, DaySpring was founded by four men—Dean Kerns, Don Leetch, Roy Lessin and Russ Flint—who wanted to "make Christ known through the printed message" as a Christian publisher.

After a few years of growth and expansion, DaySpring became the largest publisher and distributor of Christian greeting cards in the world, expanding to other products. In 1987, it became a division of Cook Communications Ministries when it was acquired by the company now known as David C. Cook.

In 1999, DaySpring was acquired from Cook by Hallmark. With a staff of 270-plus employees, DaySpring offers more than 7,000 products.

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