Category Archives: Winston-Salem

I Keep Telling Myself It’ll Grow Back

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DSC_0205
 Last night will go down as one of the more unique experiences of my life.  As I've written before (probably ad nauseum) the Triad Apartment Association holds a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina each year and at the end of the drive we have an event to recognize the organizations that raised the most food.  Last night we held the event on the rooftop deck of the Nissen Building in Winston-Salem and, as promised, I had my head shaved as part of our fundraising efforts.  We threw in a last minute twist and allowed anyone who wanted to shave a stripe in my head to do so if they contributed $20 to Second Harvest.  That resulted in $140 in additional donations, which equates to about 980 meals or 1,680 cans of food.

I have to say that there's something surreal about having your head shaved in front of 50 people on a roof twenty floors up in downtown Winston-Salem.  It was definitely worth it, and for the record here's the final tally for TAA's efforts: 223,682 cans of food (or cash equivalent) donated to Second Harvest.

That's the good news, but here's the bad news: although donations are up over 50% since last year, need for assistance is up over 100%. We could have raised 500,000 cans and it wouldn't even put a dent in the need, which means it's never too late to help.  To find out how you can help visit Second Harvest's website; I guarantee you won't regret it. 

A ton of people and multiple companies made the food drive possible and if I tried to thank them all here I'd have the longest blog post in the history of blogging.  We'll be recognizing them all at the TAA website and I'll make sure to link to it when we do.

Special shout out to my barber David Sowers of Lewisville Barber Shop for making the trip downtown and making sure that my head came out unscathed.

Help Me Help the Hungry, or, About That Head Shaving Thing

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ShaveMyHead
 At the day job we're making a final push in our food drive.  We've collected food at apartment communities, we've hosted food collection drives at the Winston-Salem Dash and Greensboro Grasshoppers games and in general we've worked our rear ends off to raise food and cash for the hungry.  The drive ends August 24, and as some of you may remember I agreed a couple of months ago to shave my head if people would donate $1,000 for that purpose. Well we're still short (although my mother has made a valiant effort to see her oldest son's hair lopped off) so we've put together a little campaign to get us there.  If we make it I'll be getting my head shaved on the 24th at a little shindig we're hosting to recognize our largest food contributors.  Contributing is as easy as sending a text, so please take a moment to help feed the hungry.

And yes, our promotional concept was a total ripoff of the cute girl quitting via whiteboard hoax from earlier this week.

Children’s Home and WSFCS School Collaboration

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Given the people spearheading this effort, George Bryan and Ted Burcaw, I'd say the new school being opened at The Children's Home stands a really good chance of working.  I was able to spend a bit of time with George during my organization's project at TCH and I've met Ted, who is the brother of a good friend of mine, on a few occasions.  Let's just say that both guys bring some serious wattage to the endeavor and that, in addition to this being a good idea in general, will go a long way towards helping the school succeed. 

From the article:

Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and The Children's Home are entering into a partnership that will enable students to benefit not only from extra attention from teachers and mental-health professionals but also from being on a 212-acre campus on Reynolda Road that has a functioning farm.

"We will be able to do things for kids that nobody else has been able to do," said Principal Ted Burcaw…

Officials don't know yet how many students will go to Kingswood when it opens for the 2010-11 school year. The school is intended to serve no more than 150 students. It will have seven teachers provided by the school system, and each class will also have a mental-health professional from staff at the Children's Home.

"These folks already have experience with the types of children we're talking about," Bryan said.

Outside of class, students will have the opportunity to work with the Children's Home's psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists. And, when appropriate, parents will be invited in for family counseling.

Update (July 13, 2010): A commenter asked how to get her elementary school-aged grandkids enrolled at the school. I passed the question along to Theo Helm at WSFCS and here's his reply:

Jon — The school will serve students in grades 6-12 next year, so it's too early for Ms. Hall to register her children. Generally speaking, it will serve students who have more involved mental health needs. Most students will either be referred there (through the IEP, or Individualized Education Plan, process that serves exceptional children or through a mental health referral) or assigned there (through the discipline process). It will also serve children who live at the group home at The Children's Home. Although there will be some parental choice, students will still generally need to be those who need more involved services.

Benefit Second Harvest and Take In a Ballgame. Also, Is Winston Better Than Greensboro?

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The Triad Apartment Association (my employer) is hosting a food drive to benefit Second Harvest and one aspect of it is that we're having a competition between the Winston-Salem Dash and the Greensboro Grasshoppers to see which team/city can raise the most food for one game.  The Dash game is next Monday (July 12) and the Grasshopper game is next Wednesday (July 14).  We have slightly different arrangements for each game but the basics are that we're encouraging folks to bring food or financial donations and then stick around to enjoy the ballgame.  Here are the details:

Winston-Salem Dash, July 12

Bring food or financial donations to our table by the entrance and you'll get a voucher for a free Dash baseball cap.  Your donations will be counted towards the Winston-Salem total.

Greensboro Grasshoppers, July 14

You can bring food and financial donations to our table, and on top of that if you buy your ticket to the game from us $2 of the ticket will go to Second Harvest.  There will also be prize giveaways throughout the evening.  Your donations will be counted towards the Greensboro total.

Last year our Food Drive raised almost 210,000 cans of food and we're determined to beat that this year.  I hope to see many of you on either Monday or Wednesday!

Final note: I'd like to personally thank Mayor Joines, Mayor Knight, WXII, The Dash and The Grasshoppers for partnering with us and Second Harvest to help feed the hungry in the Triad.  Here's the commercial we all collaborated on the promote the event:

I’m, Like, Gonna Be Famous

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Esbee asked me to write about my experience test driving the Cheerwine Kreme filled Krispy Kreme so that she could post it on Life in Forsyth.  For my friends from out of town that's about as big-time as it gets around here.  

My thanks to Esbee for treating my treatise with a gentle editing pen.  

$10 for Your Favorite Charity Could Turn Into $10,000

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Mybridges.net has a raffle ending on Wednesday that will net one charity $10,000.  That's cool, but here's what's REALLY cool.  When you buy a $10 raffle you get to choose a charity to dedicate it to, and $5 of it will go to the charity you choose whether it wins the raffle or not.  The winning charity is the one that gets the most "votes" or raffle ticket purchases dedicated to it.

So if you buy a $10 ticket on behalf of Second Harvest Food Bank then you know at least $5 will go to them, and if they win they'll get $10,000.  Since Second Harvest can get 12 cans of food (or seven meals) for every dollar that $5 will equal 60 cans of food or 35 meals.  That's pretty cool.

Visit mybridges.net for details.