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| Ballantyne Resort and Golf Club |
According to their website, “BLOC is the premier business relationship building group in Charlotte. Founded in 2001, we encourage our members to grow professionally and be active leaders in the community. Our membership is a strong group of complementary businesses that includes small, large, start-up and well established organizations. Our goal is to help our members succeed through business networking. We also provide opportunities for professional development and community involvement through our various Outreach programs.” One of these Outreach programs is the Charity Golf Tournament, which helps one nonprofit raise money and awareness for their cause. This year, Promising Pages was chosen for this honor. But, how exactly did this happen?
Michael Barnes, the President of BLOC, was happy to retell the story. He began with some background information about the golf tournaments, which I appreciated considering I knew less about golf charities than a pre-transformed Grinch knows about Christmas spirit. Michael informed me, “This is our 8thAnnual Charity Tournament and we have donated just over $50,000 from the past 7 tournaments to local nonprofit organizations. Each year we select a local nonprofit to be our beneficiary. We want the money to be impactful for the organization’s mission. We only choose local nonprofits for any of our charity fund raisers. The way it works is this: Money generated from the sale of sponsorships, donations, team registrations and raffle tickets help to provide the donation.” That means this golf tournament has the potential to be a tremendous financial support for the future of Promising Pages!
Michael became aware of Promising Pages when he first heard our Director, Kristina Cruise, speak at the Charlotte Chamber Retreat in October 2011 when Kristina announced our Big Hairy Audacious Goal of collecting 1 million children’s books by the end of 2012. He says of the initial meeting, “With Kristina’s passion, I was immediately sold that this was a good mission. I knew that they fit our mold perfectly for our fund raising events and I wanted to do everything I could to help.” They have an open application process to be considered for the tournament, and a board of sixteen helps choose the nonprofit. The three organizations with most votes are asked to give presentations. Michael was happy to admit, “Promising Pages was a clear choice for us and Kristina provided a powerful and emotional presentation.”
This brings us back to the present, which is a time of planning and organizing for Promising Pages as we prepare for the golf tournament. From our Whoville of volunteers and interns, two big helpers in the preparations are Witney Stonum and Teresa Pittman.
Witney Stonum is our Volunteer Event Planner who first heard of Promising Pages just this past January from her mother’s friend, who is also a volunteer. Her mother was also the first to spark Witney’s love of reading. Witney fondly told me, “Everyone in my family was a big reader. We would always pick one book to read together over the summer. My sister and I had tons of books, and we would play ‘library’ and set them all up in our rooms and take turns reading to each other.” Out of her interest in books, she began helping with cleaning and sorting at the warehouse before speaking with Kristina and revealing she had experience in event planning. From there, she was immediately on board to help with the tournament. She is currently helping BLOC find advertising sponsors and donors for the silent auction.
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| Teresa Pittman |
Teresa Pittman, our Creative Director, has been with Promising Pages almost since the very beginning. She first heard of Promising Pages when she met Kristina at a mutual friend’s gathering. Teresa recounts, “Later in the evening, Kristina shared her vision about Promising Pages with me. I was immediately captivated by Kristina and thought to myself, ‘Now this girl is going places.’” She jumped on board only a few months after Promising Pages was formed. As the Creative Director, she created the graphic version of Erm the Bookworm and illustrated the cover of Luckier than the Luckiest. She contributes to marketing as well as giving presentations for Promising Pages and helping network in order to spread the word about our goals.
For the golf tournament, Teresa is helping prepare for the silent auction and has acted as a guest speaker during chapter lunches with BLOC to inform them about the mission, vision, and history of Promising Pages. When I asked her what she hoped the tournament will accomplish for Promising Pages, she replied, “Of course, it goes without saying that we are absolutely honored and excited to be the designated beneficiary of the funding from this year’s tournament. Promising Pages has operated on extremely modest funds, and this generous contribution will greatly benefit the operating budget. For my personal wish, I want to see Promising Pages arrive at an awareness level in which everyone in the greater Charlotte area knows who we are, and where we are going. We have done an outstanding job of educating the masses through countless avenues, but we still need to reach more people. The BLOC tournament will be an excellent resource to help drive us to the next level.”
I encourage all of you reading to participate in this adventure with us. We need players, sponsors, and auction items donated. To learn more about BLOC, visit their website at http://www.businessleadersofcharlotte.com/, and to read more about Promising Pages, visit our site at www.promisingpages.com. In the words of Horton, Dr. Seuss’ beloved animated elephant, “A person is a person, no matter how small.” And a volunteer is a volunteer, no matter their age, level of contribution, or even whether or not they like green eggs and ham. Please support us, tell your friends, and continue to read our blog!
--Faith Lippard, Promising Pages Blogger
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