Community Involvement

[Bob Carter]

Under a different thread Marc asked what you did within your community. I would like to offer a prize,we'll call it the Wally Fay Community Involvement Award, to the firm that does the most to help their community. Wally, in a recent postings indicated he volunteers 2 weeks a year to his favorite charity. I think the rest of us are competing for the runner up award. Our nomination is for our involvement with Homeward Bound, a transitional housing project that provides home-like shelters for homeless families. Often these people, primarily women are victims of serious domestic abuse. My wife and I provide monetary and material support for the upkeep of over 100 families. Recently, the group built an 86 unit complex to provide a safe haven and we provided art for the entire project with the help of Larson, Image Conscious and South Mountain Mldg. The project exceeded $20,000 in donation. Yet, I still think we are fighting for the runner up award. Let's hear your stories about our trade, and it can be as simple as donating scrap mat board to the local day-care. We all deserve recognition for our good deeds. Now's the time to tell us about those deeds.

 

[Marc Lzier]

Bob,
What you and Wally do is incredible. I say it is a tie. I htink few hod a candle to your level of commitment.

I take a week off every summer as a summer camp counselor (now a director however). I mostly do Y Camp, but have also done Deaf Camp, Easter Seals Camp (phys handicap), and Camp Good Times (for kid who have or have had cancer). Directing a program takes a heluva lot of time, energy and expense. But it is well worth it.

As a shop we do framing for the Drug Rehab place that is a block down from us, and give a donation for the yearly auctions. We also do (free) framing services for the Concern Foundation (for cancer) Annual Fundraiser Usually of (good) art memorabilia that was donated as is (unframed) . We give out Gift certs to the local Art Associations as well. We also do framing at a reduced rate for the Jewish Federation, the Braille Institute, the Assistance League of Southern CA.

We give for ourselves, not for good business. The two however do go hand in hand.

The oddest thing we do is the framing for (retired) Catholic Brother. We used to sell him art supplies when were an art store. He does some pretty nice stuff, and has gotten better over the years. He spends most of his day doing good deeds . As a Brother he made little or no money, as a retired Brother he makes even less. We have never charged him to frame his stuff. Since his does not have cash, but does have access and use of the kitchen, in his gratitude he bakes us things. He mostly experiments with depression era substitution recipes. Always something different. Some more experimental than others. It is very nice to have your customers bless you when they come in to pick up their framing.

 

[Bob Carter]

Marc-Thanks for the kind words. Everyone should have something to get passionate about and help in any way they can. The rewards sometimes come back in financial terms(and that's great) but they always come back in emotional terms. Every year each store "adopts" a family that would otherwise have a pretty lousy holiday season. This past Christmas, we loaded up my son's 4Runner with goodies for a woman and her child that escaped with literally the clothes on her back, nothing else.She was too embarrassed to receive the gifts personally, so we left all the goodies at the home. Yesterday, we received the nicest, heart-felt card from her.She wanted to thank us for making what she feared would be the worst Christmas ever, to what with our kindness turned into the best ever. Boy, does that ever make it worth while.
PS I still think Wally gives the greatest gift of all-his time

 

[KeepFraming]

Forgive me, this is is probably not what you had in mind for this thread. But, I have to ask!! Does anyone have any recommendations for organizations to join before opening up shop/just starting out? For example, the SBA offers a mentoring program for newbies to business, this is one program that I will be particparting in! Another program I will be volunteering for one for the Wadsworth Atheneum(Museum in downtown Hartford)
which I think will be very helpful.
Thought?

 

[po' framer]

In general, I agree with the whole idea that one needs to give (or give back, depending upon your point of view and situation) to one's community. Everyone brings different things to the table, but there's someone who needs something you can offer.

I appreciate the fantastic things which have been brought forward already in this thread. Certainly community involvement is an evolving thing and sometimes it takes a while to find one's niche.

Being as we are both a coffeehouse and framiing shop, helping with Habitat for Humanity has been a good fit for us. Coffee for group workdays and one or two nicely framed pictures when the house is finished.

People have different talents. I had been a youth coach in sports for years and found that I had a certain ability which I improved with a lot of work and study. The last nine years (before we moved here), I was a 'rare' volunteer high school varsity football coach. We had a great run of four straight appearances in the state championship game and I got lots of memories and get to watch some of my former players on tv nowadays doing well.

You'll note a common thread from the above; although there was money spent on those endeavors, they are all about materials we have with which we add value or personal time. I don't believe that's a requisite or anything; it just fits what I had to give.

Having said that, one of the more exciting things I've run into recently is a mission group in Guatemala which has built churches, medical facilities and a school in a rural coffee-growing region of Guatemala. They bought a block-making machine and for $1500 can build a family a cement block house with a good roof and cement floor, really increasing their living conditions. For $500 you can get them started with a micro coffee farm. If their onsite technical advice and processing coop are good enough, their coffees in two years can potentially reach the specialty coffee levels we need for the shop. It'd be nice to get coffee from farmers we helped get started.

What we're discussing with our roaster, who has several customers like us, is to try to do a group project such as building a home and starting a farm for a family per year. You've seen the big change jars at McDonald's for Ronald McDonald house; we'd have these scattered in the coffee houses around.

What the heck... we could send them a framed picture too, couldn't we, as a good housewarmer from their stateside friends?