By Gary Nager
Although I am incredibly proud of the work that we do and the ways we’ve always been able to help small, local businesses succeed in and around our distribution areas, I will gladly admit that when it comes to helping worthy people and their worthy causes — and there are too many of them working in our area to name here — our track record isn’t really very good.
But, that’s not because we haven’t been trying. Every year, whether in this space or in the hundreds of news stories, Community Calendar items and even ads we run about these wonderful organizations (and businesses), rarely have I heard from those folks that we helped them raise a lot of money.
What I hear most is that we, “helped raise awareness of our organization (and/or business), but we don’t know how much of what we raised is attributable to what you did. But, thank you so much for trying.”
Of course, when I first purchased the Neighborhood News in 1994, there was no such thing as the internet. And, until the last 3-5 years or so, no one was much able to use the web to raise money for their charitable efforts or their businesses.
But, one good result of our digital world has been that nonprofit organizations and businesses around the world have been brought together with supporters in ways previously thought impossible and — despite a world full of faceless scammers online — there are legitimate ways these days to use the internet to help legitimate people raise money to keep their organizations in business.
So, when two people I’ve known for years, from two totally different types of nonprofits (with totally different missions) came to me to discuss what they were doing to help fund their respective organizations, I knew I wanted to try to help them both.
Vote For Starting Right, Now!
Although we’ve only met a few times, I have known Starting Right, Now (SRN) founder and Tampa Palms resident Vicki Sokolik for about as long as I’ve been in business. Starting Right, Now is the program Sokolik started five years ago to try to meet the needs of the homeless families and children in Hillsborough County.
“We intervene in a uniquely holistic way for our clients,” says the SRN website (StartingRightNow.org). “We take our students to tour college campuses or vocational programs, fill out the applications, complete the essays and even help with their financial aid and scholarships. SRN is ending homelessness, one child at a time.”
Vicki recently emailed me with a press release/request to help SRN win a $350,000 grant to help fund the expansion of this unique organization.
SRN can win a $350,000 Communities Benefit grant from the Humana Foundation, but they need your help. From the moment you receive this issue in your mailbox through Friday, August 22, you can vote daily for SRN at HumanaHCBVote.com. The results of the online vote will account for 20 percent of the organization’s total score during the final round of judging, which will occur later this month, when each finalist will get to present its program proposal to a panel of community leader judges and, in September, Humana will announce the $350,000 grant recipient for 2014.
Please ‘Go Fund’ Acie & Tina!
I have only known Acie Jenkins for maybe five years, as we met when he was working for a local car service and gave me a ride home from the Shops at Wiregrass mall.
Over the course of the last few months, however, Ace (whose name may be familiar to you because he also used to own Uncle Bo’s BBQ on S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel; he also still owns Ace in the Hole Van Service, both of which have been advertised in these pages) has been telling me about a new, non-emergency medical transport business venture that he and his wife Tina have started because of Tina’s ongoing health issues since she suffered the first of three strokes in 2007.
Acie and Tina are trying to kick off their business — called 1st Care Non-Emergency Medical Transport (1stCareNEMT.com) — through a website known as GoFundMe.com. 1st Care’s goal is to provide safe, reliable and timely assisted passenger transportation to those who are unable to provide or secure transportation independently. And, Acie and Tina’s vision is to become our community’s transportation provider of choice, servicing the assisted transportation needs of area hospitals, nursing facilities, doctor offices, senior centers, independent living seniors, and physically challenged persons.
Within just a few weeks of having their own website (which directs you to their fund-raising page on GoFundMe.com), Acie and Tina already have raised close to $1,000 with little or no other promotion (GoFundMe.com keeps 5% of all donations to the thousands of businesses, nonprofits and causes on its site). When you visit, you can watch 1st Care’s video detailing how the business works, as well as testimonials from their friends and supporters, including a certain local news magazine publisher.
To make donations or for more info, see the 1st Care ad on page 8, or visit 1stCareNEMT.com and click on the “Donate” button, which will take you to the 1st Care page on GoFundMe.com.
To make donations & find out more, visit GoFundMe.com/1stcarenemt.
Oh, and please, don’t forget to vote in this year’s Primary Election on Tuesday, August 26. Some officials, including judges, will be elected during this election!
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