Latest and Greatest

Greetings friends! We are half way through January- it feels like New Years was yesterday! Things are chugging along well over here. I'm happy to announce that we've booked our 9th Annual Project Smile Charity Date Auction for Friday, Sept. 18 at Venu. It is a great location for our event and they were happy to have us back again. I've reached out to Yelp and we will be partnering with them as the featured event in their weekly Yelp newsletter the week before the auction. I  also asked if we could partner for one of our fashion shows and they are willing to partner with us for a second event, so that is good news. Originally, I was thinking of promoting our fall fashion show during Boston Fashion Week with Yelp, but I might promote the spring one instead. Our Step into Spring Show will not be happening at Copley Place this year. It had been great having the event there, so it was a little disappointing not to be there this spring but it opens up a whole new opportunity to have a great event somewhere else and possibly raise additional funds. I will be meeting with another lifestyle shopping center who is interested in hosting the event. I will keep you posted.

In other news, next week I'll be dropping off more items for the Dept. of Children and Families. It's always my favorite donation to do. The need is so great at DCF for items for children. I'm also starting to reach out to the Worcester office to donate crayons and other items for the Easter baskets that they do for children.

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I know it's a short posting, but I'm off to catch up on sending some thank you letters for stuffed animal donations and then eat my grapefruit! Until next time friends...

Happy New Year!

Greetings friends and a happy new year! Hard to believe we're almost a week into the new year. I'm excited to kick things of and get going for the new year. It's always full of lots of potential. 2014 ended on a high note. We received a surprise $2,000 donation from a New Jersey foundation which was great. I hadn't heard of the foundation before, so it was great news to open up the envelope and see the check. We had a good year and that unexpected donation helped make up for some of the event sponsorship that we didn't receive this year.

On another nice note, I received a check and a note from a school teacher in New Hampshire. She collected small change along the street and she wanted to pay it forward by donating the money to Project Smile to help our efforts for children. She said she would keep collecting the "pennies from heaven." That was a very kind gesture and I really appreciate that she chose us. Some people are so thoughtful, it's really remarkable. 

Our donation to the Entre Familia homeless shelter right before Christmas went great. The children were so happy. They loved their gifts and they loved the Santa Claus. It was awesome to see their faces. One of the girls squealed in delight when she opened her doll. One of the moms came up to me and gave me a hug. She thanked us for bringing such happiness to the children. Her four year old son loved trains, so it was perfect that we had given him a train set for his gift. He was so happy sitting with his mom and playing with the train. Here is a photo of some of the kids with their gifts and a photo of me with Santa and one of the program directors at the shelter.

A special thank you to everyone who donated, our awesome Santa and Shepherd & Goldstein in Milford for all their help in making this party for the children possible. You can check out more photos on our FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152873403309536.1073741836.50833009535&type=1

Well friends, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to eat my grapefruit and watch TV for a bit. Until tomorrow friends...