Business Leaders of Charlotte Charity Golf Tournament

'Houston, we have funding.' The 8th annual Business Leaders of Charlotte (BLOC) Golf Tournament at the Ballantyne Hotel may not have paralleled the importance of a space mission, but to Promising Pages Founder Kristina Cruise, that's exactly what it felt like. “This is our first opportunity for major funding and will give us a sizable operating budget for the first time in our existence.” Promising Pages came onto the Charlotte non-profit scene 1 year ago this May. Pages' total budget up to this point? A mere $3,000 thanks to a grant from Hands on Charlotte and a donation from Carolina Business Interiors, among others. "This tournament and the generous funding just make it all feel so real," said Cruise as she thanked the participants during a delicious spanish flair dinner provided by Chef Rodolfo from El Molino bakery and catering (rodolfomontero@yahoo.com).  

BLOC was founded in 2001 and has a network of several hundred members. According to their website, “BLOC is an organization dedicated to helping our members grow through business networking opportunities, support for professional development efforts and providing an avenue for members and local businesses to get “plugged into” the community through our various outreach programs and partnerships.” This golf tournament is one of their main outreach programs.

Scott Donaghy lines up to take a shot while
James Anderson and the rest of his foursome look on.  

This year there were 13 non-profits who applied for this opportunity and Promising Pages was chosen among three finalists. According to former BLOC President and Best-In-Tech Founder Scott Donaghy, “We like to choose non-profits which are small and local. We feel BLOC can help in a larger way by partnering with small groups just starting and by keeping the groups we support local.” It's doesn't get much more small and local than Promising Pages. Pages is run by three main volunteers, Cruise, Patricia Ozmeral and Linda Bonerba. Together with the help of others they have collected more than 25,000 kids books and are busy bees as they put them back into the hands of kids in our area who are growing up without books to call their own. 

Helping kids get books to call their own is also the mission of another foundation in the Charlotte area.  Carolina Panthers Linebacker James Anderson and his foundation have donated 4,500 books to children in Charlotte and his native Virginia.  Anderson was the celebrity golfer at the BLOC Charity Golf Tournament.  He is a native of Chesapeake, VA and has been involved with children since his days at Virginia Tech.  Before the tournament Anderson spoke passionately about the kids who have benefitted from his foundation when he said, “It is great to see the look in a kid’s eye when we give them a book. They can’t believe it when they realize they actually get to keep the book.”  We here at Promising Pages share that feeling.

Promising Pages founder Kristina Cruise with
Carolina Panthers Linebacker James Anderson

Even the crummy weather Monday couldn't rain on Anderson's parade, or the pride he felt about getting books into the hands of children. At one point there was a break in the golfing action because of lightning. There were three groups of golfers that parked their carts inside a tunnel along with Anderson. At first every group was attempting to see who could tell the biggest lie about their score. Shortly after this break Anderson sank a putt of about 12 feet on hole number 17. His athletic ability was on display as well when he had a driver in his hand.  He hit the ball a good 20 yards farther than anyone else in his foursome.  It seems his pride doesn't stop at books. 

Another partner of Promising Pages involved in this tournament was Tim O’Boyle, president of Journalbooks, a great marketing tool for any business large or small. O’Boyle is helping Promising Pages through a partnership with Queens University McColl School of Business.  He and a group of MBA Exec Students are writing a business plan for a new program called the One Million Books or OMB Campaign. That's how many books Cruise feels is needed to provide all kids in Charlotte who don't have them with a shelf full of books at home.

According to O’Boyle, “Journal books has always been part of the community and helped many organizations along the way.  Promising Pages seemed like a great fit for us and for BLOC. ” We at Pages look forward to implementing the One Million Book Campaign and we appreciate the funding this golf tournament brought us. 

Michael Barnes current President of BLOC and Vice President of Carolina Connections, Inc was also instrumental in making this opportunity become a reality for Promising Pages.  Barnes was the first person to inform Cruise about the BLOC Charity Golf Tournament and how to apply to be the beneficiary.  Barnes and Cruise met in Charleston, SC at a Charlotte Chamber Retreat. He thought she would be a good fit with BLOC and encouraged her to apply.  

“Kristina was one of three finalists allowed to give a 15 minute pitch on why their non profit should receive funding.  After seeing her presentation Promising Pages was the clear choice.” Barnes said.  This was the beginning of the relationship between Promising Pages and BLOC. This funding makes Promising Pages a real player in the non-profit world.  

The Members of BLOC are mostly small businesses.  In the Charlotte community they sometimes feel like David fighting Goliath in this city full of huge corporations.  Promising Pages sometimes also feels like David fighting against a Goliath which is the fact 60.000 kids in the Charlotte region are living without books.  With the generous help of BLOC, Promising Pages will feel much less like David by having an operating budget for the first time in its short history

Cicily Young dressed as Erma the Bookworm

On behalf of Promising Pages and the thousands of kids we serve we offer our sincerest thank you to BLOC, Ballantyne Resort, James Anderson and all of the sponsors who made this possible. It may be one small step for the BLOC community, but it was one giant leap for Promising Pages.

These were not the only supporters of the tournament. In fact, the list is long and distinguished:


HF Financial                                      The Hatcher Law Group

My Dentists CNP Technologies         Advanced Tech

Bk Bookkeeping On Demand            Hibiscus Graphix

Brian Boswell CPA                           Metlife of the Carolinas

In Good Company                            Best-in-tech

Chef Mike                                         Carolinas Connections Inc.

DiCi Services                                    Cabaret Systems

Difabion Remodeling                         HM Properties

Journal Books                                   Buona Vita Restaurant

John Street Graphics

Exactly how much funding has yet to be made know, but we know it's a BIG number. The full amount will be revealed at the June after-hours at the NC Music Factory.

-Mitchell Sharp

Promising Pages newest supporter, Baby Nate.  

Promising Pages' Hot Summer Project!

McColl School of Business

At the risk of sounding repetitive, I am proud to announce Promising Pages’ new partnership! I think it says something great about the Charlotte community when Promising Pages has found so many people and organizations like Second Food Harvest, the Business Leaders of Charlotte (BLOC), and countless schools and church that have assisted, supported, and encouraged us. And our newest partnership is with the Executive MBA program at the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte.

This connection began when the McColl School of Business sent out requests for local nonprofits to work with small groups of graduate students over the summer. According to the Executive MBA Director, Nancy McNelis, “We received 13 applications and selected 5 based upon project, diversity of organization and community need. Then all 5 nonprofits presented to EMBA students and they ranked their selection. All students were assigned to their first or second choice.”

When it was time to give the presentation, our Director Kristina Cruise stepped up for the responsibility. Even for such a multi-talented, outgoing woman, deciding to take on this job really showed her dedication to Promising Pages. I am not only referring to her giving a fantastic presentation, but she took her 12 day old son in with her! And her presentation encouraged four students to choose to collaborate with our summer project. Kristina explained the specific details of the project, saying, “They will be partnering to launch our 1 million books campaign. They will be assisting us for the branding and marketing campaign. We will work with the students and staff this summer and we likely roll out the OMB (One Million Books) officially in August. We will ask all businesses, schools and churches and civic groups to participate and collect books for us during a two or three week period between August and the following August.”

A large inspiration for Kristina to apply to the MBA partnership came from some encouraging words from Charlotte Chamber member Stoney Sellars. Kristina tells me, “The OMB campaign started as the Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG), then Stoney Sellars told me in a meeting on Oct 31st, 2011 that ‘We can do this. This is a supportive community and if you don't see this as a real goal instead of an audacious goal you are missing the point.’”

Kristina took a leap of faith and pursued this goal. In return, Promising Pages now has four dedicated graduate students to help market our journey in collecting 1 million books. Karen, who voted to join the Promising Pages team, has a long history of reading. She loved Dr. Seuss as a child and she tells me now, “I read mostly nonfiction and biographies of people of interest. I also read a lot of articles.” She is a Charlotte native and is a strong supporter of Promising Pages. She says her reason for choosing Promising Pages out of the other nonprofit options was because, “I strongly believe reading is important, and my family reads a lot.” When I asked her what she hoped to accomplish with the summer project, she eagerly replied, “I hope to help contribute to the public's awareness of the program. I feel it is so important to get books in the hands of those who cannot afford them or do not have access to them. Knowledge is so important and one can learn different ways of thinking, behaviors, philosophies, can relate to others, etc. just by reading.” I speak for Promising Pages when I say my hope is that by the time they're done, everyone in Charlotte will know about the likes of Promising Pages, at least that's the goal anyway, a big hairy audacious goal, transformed into reality.

I want to thank all of my viewers for reading my blog. I will be graduating from the School of Arts at Queens in less than two weeks, and this is my last blog. But, don’t worry, our new blogger, Michelle Tabler, will be continuing to write for Promising Pages. If you want to know more information about Promising Pages, visit us at www.promisingpages.com. Again, thank you for reading!  

--Faith Lippard, Promising Pages Blogger