Latest and Greatest

Greetings friends! So what's the latest? Well, things are chugging along well over here. One of our supporters, Melanie Fleet, a Boston area realtor, organized a client appreciation event where she collected donations of new stuffed animals for us. We received over 100 beautiful stuffed animals. It is awesome to have support like that. Below is a photo with Melanie and a photo of some of the stuffed animals. Thank you Melanie and everyone who donated! We included them in our donation last week to Lowell Police.

A brother and sister duo, Piper and Parker, also helped recently. They were inspired to start their own charity to help children and collected hundreds of stuffed animals. Their dad reached out to me after the kids decided they wanted to donate to Project Smile. They dropped off 200 beautiful stuffed animals. We included them in our DCF donation last week and some of our other donations. Here is an adorable photo of the children with their collection. No- the massive dog was not donated to us! I don't think that would fit in a cruiser or ambulance!

We're always looking for more groups or individuals who would like to help out like this and collect new items for us. So, if you know anyone who might like to help, please spread the word.

We've been adding some new departments recently- Littleton Police, Bolton Police and Bolton Ambulance. I love it when we add new departments. One of the officers who reached out first heard about Project Smile when he was in the police academy and I had gone to his class to talk about our work and recruit participants for our annual Date Auction. It's hard to keep up with all the departments we work with, but it's great when new ones reach out and want to be involved. The Littleton Police sent a press release to their local newspaper and I received a note from a lady with a $30 check as a donation. She read about our efforts in the newspaper and wanted to support what we were doing. I wrote her a card thanking her for the donation.  I have a bunch of Boston area departments that I need to follow up with tomorrow. It has been a while since we donated to some of them, so their supplies must be running low.

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to eat my grapefruit- hopefully, there is one left in the fridge. Until tomorrow friends...

Kicking Off 2016!

Greetings friends and happy new year! We're almost half way through January, so maybe I'm a little late on the new years greetings! Anyways, I am excited for the new year. We finished 2015 on a high note with some great donations. It was another good year for us and for that, I am very grateful. Thank you to everyone who supported us last year and through the many years. Every donation made a difference.

I am excited for everything that I want to do this year. One of my goals for Project Smile is to expand our event into other areas. I've started work on bringing Shoe Club events to Providence this spring and hopefully to launch a Project Smile event there. I also want to work on doing a second Date Auction in another area. I think that it is an event that could travel well. It's a matter of finding the right event partners. I reached out to Assembly Row about having our spring fashion show with them again this year. They are interested in working together again for another event. We're going to be speaking later this week. They were great to work with and I would love to have another fashion event with them. I also want to look for more speaking opportunities, whether it is Rotary Clubs or other groups- the more opportunities I have to speak in front of groups of people, the more I can get people involved to support our work. I also want to attend more networking events with different organizations.

We've been getting lots of lovely donations of stuffed animals lately. A woman from a social organization in Warwick stopped by today and dropped off 4 big bags of new teddy bears that they had received for a Christmas program they organized.  Right before Christmas, employees at Converse did a team building event where they stuffed teddy bears. They donated 200 lovely little bears to us. The bears all have hand written tags on them which are so cute. Here are photos from the Converse event

Well, that's all for tonight. I'm off to do some event research. Until next time friends....

Good News

Greetings friends! So what's new? Well, last week, we donated to our newest department- Brookline Fire. I'm always happy to add a new department. Another new department also reached out this week, we are planning a donation to them in early December.



In other good news, we received a $3,000 grant from the Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation. The Foundation has been supporting us for almost 10 years. I am a huge fan of local banks- they are some of the best community supporters and make a huge difference in supporting their towns. I feel like a lot of their work in the community goes unnoticed. We have our business banking account with Rockland Trust and I have my personal banking with Milford National Bank. I owe so much of our fundraising success to our local banks, particularly these two. They have been there since almost the beginning. Not only are they great supporters for local charities, but they also have good services and excellent customer service.

I'm starting work on 2016 plans and I would like to expand to do more for homeless children and families. I was reading an article today about a Thanksgiving dinner that was served this week for Boston area homeless families. The article was talking about how hard it is for homeless families who are living in hotels/motels. They only have a microwave in their room and aren't able to cook for their children. Homelessness gets more attention with  the holidays coming up, but these families are in need all year long. I would like to organize a dinner event next year, in the early summer for homeless families. I'm going to start reaching out to some connections and see if we could do it in Worcester. I have a host venue in mind that we could possibly use for the event. Obviously, it isn't a cure to the problem, but it would be nice to put together an event where homeless families can enjoy a nice dinner.

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I'm off to respond to emails. Until next time friends...

Event Success!

Greetings friends! Well, this blog post is late in coming. Our last big event- our Project Smile 12th Anniversary Celebration went great! We raised $8,000 for Project Smile and had a good attendance. Our guest speaker Lt. Governor Polito was excellent. She spoke so passionately about the importance of helping children and the opiate crisis. She also recognized some of our long time supporters by name which was perfect. Our supporters were touched that she singled them out to recognize them by name. Our jazz group, the Barry Levine trio, did a wonderful job performing. Our volunteers did an awesome job helping out with setting up and making sure the event ran smoothly. Dick Ferrucci, our event host, worked his usual magic in hosting the live auction. He is the best charity auctioneer you can imagine!

Here is a photo with Lt. Governor Polito and Miss Massachusetts, one of our special guests.  The next photo is with friends and long time supporters from the Women's Success Network.

Konditor Meister, the amazing bakery in Braintree donated this beautiful cake for the event. Their cakes are not only beautiful, but delicious too. Here we are- about to cut the cake!

I love this photo our our board member Michelle, with her family. Her daughter is our 2016 PS calendar cover baby. The photo below that is with Kelli, owner of Theracopia Wellness Center in Southboro. She is one of our board members and donated a beautiful basket for the live auction.

Here is a nice photo with the Worcester East Department of Children of Families area director and the Lt. Governor.

 The Lt. Governor was so nice and bought 2 handmade garden gnomes at the live auction that my friend Brian makes and donates for our event every year.

These photos are courtesy of Clark Linehan, who generously donated his services along with Walter Smith.
Thanks so much to everyone who sponsored, donated auction items, volunteered and attended. I really appreciate your support.
Until tomorrow friends...

Event Excitement

Greetings friends! Only 3 days to go until our big night- the Project Smile 12th Anniversary Celebration. All these months of work and it will all come down to 3 hours on Friday night. We are in a good position for the event. I picked up our calendars on Monday and they look beautiful. Our printer had a technical issue with his machines and that caused the calendar to be delayed for over a week and a half. I was starting to get worried last week, but they ended up being ready by the end of the day on Friday. It's so good that we always get them to the printer almost a month before we need them. I always tell them that I need the calendars a week before I actually do, just in case something happens- it gives us extra time to work with. I picked up some beautiful gift baskets lately for the silent auction- Mary Jo Eagan, a Tupperware consultant, always makes us a gorgeous basket filled with Tupperware. Here is a photo, but it doesn't quite do it justice.

I also picked up a beautiful basket from Dunkin Donuts in Mendon this morning. It is literally filled with bags of coffee, travel mug, 2 t-shirts and other items. It's always great to have pretty baskets like this because it helps with the room decoration.

I was up until 3:30am working on things. I finished almost all of the bid sheets. Tomorrow, I'm meeting one of our great volunteers who helped get beautiful pieces of jewelry for the event. Once I have those, I can do those bid sheets. Another long-time supporter and Mary Kay consultant, dropped off a gift item this afternoon for the auction, so I need to get that bid sheet done as well. After bid sheets last night, I felt inspired and did the powerpoint slideshow of our calendar photos and PS photos from throughout the year. I always play it during the event and it gives guests something else to enjoy. The calendar prints black/white, so it's nice to be able to show the original color photos. I had to buy a projector for the very first time. One of our other supporters had been able to borrow one from his office for many years, but that isn't possible. I bought a super cheap one last year which didn't even work. I decided to make the investment and bought one today. It was a little pricey, but the quality is amazing. I tried it out tonight to make sure everything was working properly. It's really an impressive piece of equipment.

Tomorrow, I'm picking up our event programs. We have a new business consultant at Staples and she has been awesome so far. She sent an introductory email yesterday and I wrote back to her late last night with our program. She responded early this morning and even offered to have the programs delivered- never had that before!

Well, that's the latest for tonight. I have to respond to a few emails, then I'm heading to bed. I was up early to promote our event on our local radio station WMRC- that's always a fun experience. I love every opportunity to talk about Project Smile! Until tomorrow friends...

Latest and Greatest

Greetings friends! It has been a very long time since my last posting. I can't believe that I haven't blogged since August. There is lots happening, so it definitely wasn't that I didn't have any news. I got out of the habit of blogging regularly and when you do that, it can be hard to get back into the groove. Anyways, so what's new?

Well, the Date Auction, our big event, was last month. It went great. We raised 10K and had a lot of great feedback from participants and sponsors. The event was in the Boston Globe's Names section again which was great. Here are some photos from the event. The Rev Girls were special guests and did an awesome job. Here is a photo from the Globe's Names section. Photo courtesy of Clark Linehan. Check out other photos from the event too. The rest of the photos are courtesy of Walter Smith.

A special thank you to our awesome bachelors and bachelorettes, our event sponsors- Jess Meet Ken- an awesome new dating app that everyone should check out- http://www.jessmeetken.com/

Melanie Fleet, a Boston area Realtor with Keller Williams, UsTrendy, Yelp, Boston Event Guide and Sofft Shoes. Our hosts Michael Winter and Julie Devereaux from WROR did a terrific job. I was happy that we had a good event. 

Well, I need to get back to working on our 12th Anniversary Celebration which is rapidly approaching- next Friday! I promise to be back on the blogging wagon- it does feel great to be blogging again! Until tomorrow friends..

Busy Days

Greetings friends! So what's new? Well, the super busy days are here. The Date Auction is a little over 3 weeks away, calendar photos are wrapping up, the fall fashion show is just about a month away and our Anniversary Celebration is in October. So much going on, it is hard to keep up. On the good news front, we are almost done with photos. The goal is to finish photos by next Wednesday. I have one more half month of advertising to sell and then we will be all set with calendar ads. One of my favorite things is seeing how the children that have been in the calendar multiple times, are growing up. Yesterday, I was in Marlboro doing photos with the children of two officers. One of the officers has twin girls who have been in the calendar since they were toddlers. They are about 9 years old now and so cute. They are both cheerleaders, so I asked them if they wanted to do a cheerleading pose for the photos, they did a pose where one girl sat on her sister's shoulders. Their dad stood next to them- it was such an adorable photo. Today, I was doing photos with the children of one our long time supporters. He has 3 boys who are all cute kids- they've been on the calendar cover before. Their youngest is 4 years old and is really adorable. He also talks like a little grown up- he was walking down the sidewalk and announced in a grown up voice that the  "sun is so bright. It is blinding my eyes." - not what you usually hear from a 4 year old.

On the Date Auction front, we've reached our sponsorship goal which is great. We moved the event to the nightclub Icon. It is in the same building as Venu, it's just on the main floor. It was redesigned last year and looks really cool. Guests get to stay after at Icon which is a nice bonus. We've got some awesome singles signed up to participate, but still need a few more to sign up, so if you can help us by spreading the word and recruiting some fun single guys or ladies to participate, that would be great. Here is the flyer which can be downloaded and shared.

Well, there's lots more to write about, but I need to get some work done on our fall fashion show. Until tomorrow friends...