Tag Archives: second harvest food bank of nwnc

When Life Throws a Curve, Head to the Lake

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Days 4&5 of Virtual Walk Around the Triad to Benefit Second Harvest

Activity Day 4: When your better half has an unexpected and kinda scary medical event you don’t do anything but take care of her, so that’s what I did.
Activity Day 5: I was supposed to be in Florida helping my mom pack up her house, but due to the events of Day 4 she recruited someone else. So I made sure my better half was in solid shape and headed to Salem Lake for a walk/run.

Miles walked/run: 12.72 miles. Here’s the screenshot from my FitBit:

Miles remaining in challenge: 337.42

Today’s sponsor: Crescent Rotary Club (via my contribution. The members of this club do a tremendous amount of good for our community.

Mr. Lowder’s Neighborhood

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Day 3 of Virtual Walk Around the Triad to Benefit Second Harvest

Activity: Morning dog walk and evening walk around Williamsburg Square Neighborhood with my much better half, Celeste Lowder (3 laps)

Miles walked/run: 5.43 miles. Here’s the screenshot from my FitBit:

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Miles remaining in challenge: 350.14

Today’s sponsor: The PTAA Food Drive which began today and runs through July 7.

9/11 Memorial Stair Climb – First Leg of Pentathlon of Pain

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My buddy Bert Wray was kind enough to set me up to participate in the 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb that he helps put on at Proehlific Park in Greensboro. 110 sets of stairs (up and down = 1) and if you’re so inclined you can carry a fire hose while doing it. I did the 110, the last 10 with the hose. Great time and a great way to commemorate 9/11, raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project and for me to start my campaign for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC. FYI, Bert and his crew raised hundreds of dollars for the Wounded Warrior Project!

Here’s a link to the GoFundMe page I set up for the Pentathlon of Pain:
Donate Here!

Here’s a few videos that Bert shot while I was torturing myself:

My Pentathlon of Pain for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC

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JonTutuHeels
I’ve been talking about this for a while, but now I’ve finally decided to pull the trigger. From 9/11/15 to 10/11/15 I’m going to engage in what I’ve dubbed Jon’s Pentathlon of Pain to raise money and awareness for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC. What exactly is it? Actually it’s pretty simple: it’s five physically trying or embarrassing activities that I will undertake to raise money on behalf of the food bank. Here’s how it will work:

  • Someone sponsors me for a certain amount of money and they get to pick the embarrassing or physically challenging thing I will do. For example I jumped in a pool last year wearing a tiara, tutu and high heals and with a slogan painted on my back. In exchange the Blue Ridge Companies gave hundreds of dollars to Second Harvest.
  • Another option is that I will do something trying and people will donate to the food bank after I complete the task. So if I run 15 miles then they’ll donate a dollar a mile – that kind of thing.

So how can you help? Well I’ve already signed up to do the 9/11 World Trade Center memorial stair climb. That’s 110 flights of stairs I will climb and descend on the morning of the 11th. You could agree to donate a certain amount per flight if you’d like. Or you can suggest an activity and have your company sponsor it. I’ll gladly promote your company in the process and every single dollar will go to Second Harvest.

If you want to simply make a donation just visit GoFundMe page I set up for the campaign. Or check out the schedule below and if you see an available slot and you have something crazy or challenging for me to do, then just reach out and see what we can work out!

Schedule of Events

  1. Sep 11, 2015: World Trade Center Memorial Stair climb – I’m gonna climb 100 stories!
  2. Sep 26, 2015: Salem Lake 30K Trail Race – I’ve never run more than 13.1 before and I have NOT been training beyond my normal routine so this is gonna hurt.
  3. To Be Determined. You can submit a proposal via email here.
  4. To Be Determined. You can submit a proposal via email here.
  5. To Be Determined. You can submit a proposal via email here.

Pamper Yourself (or Your Favorite Lady) and Help Feed the Hungry in the Process

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Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC has a great event coming up next Sunday that offers a unique opportunity to have some fun and help feed the hungry in the process. It’s called Wine, Women & Shoes and it will be held at Revolution Mills in Greensboro from 3-6 p.m. on Sunday, October 12, 2014. Details below and you can visit the website to order tickets.

Face of Poverty in the Piedmont Triad

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This article in the Greensboro News & Record has a lot of disheartening statistics:

In the past 10 years, the state (North Carolina) has gone from the 26th-highest poverty rate in the country to the 11th. One in 4 children are living in poverty.

At the same time, 1 in 5 people in the city of Greensboro live in poverty — that’s considered to be having an annual income of less than $24,000 for a family of four…

Of the Second Harvest Food Bank’s 400 partner networks, 90 are in the greater Greensboro area, including the Greensboro Urban Ministry. Second Harvest is one of a handful of regional food banks in the state.

In 2009, the group distributed 7.9 million pounds of food. This past year, the group distributed 25 million pounds of food.

You might be tired of reading about the food drive to benefit Second Harvest at my day job, but when given the state of affairs around here it would be immoral not to remind everyone that there is a readily available way to help.

Why We Help Second Harvest

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At the day job we’ve been running annual food drives for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC for ten years. Every year we try to do better than the last and so I find myself doing what appear to be silly or crazy things to gin up publicity and interest for our efforts – things like wearing a pink tutu while jumping into a pool with the word EPIC painted on my back. You may wonder why someone would do something that odd, but when you read about some of the programs that Second Harvest supports it becomes clear that a little embarrassment is the least we can do for an organization that fills a vital role for our community. Scott Sexton’s column in today’s Winston-Salem Journal brings us the story of one of those programs:

In six short months, the H.O.P.E. truck has become a staple in neighborhoods where fresh food is often a rumor.

It is part of a larger project dreamed up by Tennille and his wife, Marty, a retired couple with hearts as big as their imaginations. When they learned that children in Winston-Salem are more likely to go hungry than kids in Detroit or Chicago, they were horrified.

But instead of wringing their hands, stamping their feet in protest or simply writing a check, they decided to do something about it…

Since it started rolling in January, H.O.P.E. of Winston-Salem has mushroomed into something of which the entire community should be proud.

The Tennilles pick up items from the Second Harvest Food Bank and 50-pound bags of fresh food donated by the Vernon Produce Co. during the week.

A small group of volunteers meets every Saturday in a retreat center at the Children’s Home, where they set up an assembly line to make healthy bag lunches for kids and to box up fresh produce for adults who come with them. Groups from a variety of churches assemble lunches at their buildings, too, and pack them into giant coolers so a volunteer can pick them up later.

Around noon on Sundays, more volunteers start to trickle in at The Children’s Home to load the truck and a similarly painted minivan. The entire operation runs like Swiss trains; it stops at the same places every Sunday at the same time. By the time it finishes, more than 700 children get to eat and a few dozen food boxes are distributed.

By the way if you want to help us support Second Harvest you can do so by making a donation at helpsecondharvest.com. Also, if you want to see me embarrass myself yet again you can drive by the Robinhood Court Apartments and Villas this Thursday (July 10) from 4-5 p.m. where I’ll be part of “Two Guys Wearing Prom Dresses” to raise funds for Second Harvest. You guessed it: I’ll be wearing a dress. Here’s a handy map for you find us:

PTAA Food Drive for Second Harvest

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Each year my employer, the Piedmont Triad Apartment Association, puts on a food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC. The folks at WPTI were kind enough to have Dale Holder, our food drive committee chair, and yours truly on their Triad View Points show to talk about it. Here’s the interview:

The Agony of Dafeet

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As I've written about in years past the organization I work for, Piedmont Triad Apartment Association, does an annual food drive for Second Harvest Food Bank of NWNC.  One of the cool developments over the last couple of years is the development of other fundraisers tied to ours and a perfect example is Matt's Run to Fight Hunger.

One of our board members, Matt Ketterman, has a running streak of running at least one mile every day for over 22 years. That's 8,030 straight days for those of you who are counting.  A couple of years ago to celebrate his streak hitting 20 years Matt started his run to fight hunger with the help of Off 'n Running in Greensboro, NC. The concept was simple: bring a food or cash donation as your entry "fee" to the the run and then run a 5 or 10k with a bunch of like-minded runners.  The run was a big success so Matt did it again last year and this year he really ramped it up and decided to set a goal of raising one dollar for every mile of his streak, or $8,030. 

This year's run happened on the morning of July 6 and Matt had over 200 runners show up and he raised more than his $8,030 goal. Below is the Fox8 story about the run (you can see yours truly really suffering through the last part of the 10k at about the 1:55 point of the story) and although they say the run raised $7,000 that was just the morning of the race: donations continue to come in even as I type this.

FYI, PTAA will be sponsoring the annual Fill the Stands With Cans effort for Second Harvest this Friday (July 19) at the Greensboro Grasshoppers game and next Friday (July 26) at the Winston-Salem Dash game. If you bring a food or cash donation to the game you'll automatically be entered for a prize drawing. Hope to see you there!