Hi all! Posting’s been a little light lately due to the holidays, but I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who came to the Providence Geeks’ meeting on December 17th. Not only did you get to hear the always entertaining Abe Dane present on his on-line publishing company Tizra, but we were able to make a healthy contribution to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank.
Lisa Roth Blackman, Food Bank Director of Development & Communications, was also there to say a few words about the Food Bank’s efforts to provide for people in our community. She reports that the Geeks collected 334 pounds of food, plus an additional (and impromptu) “pass the hat” collection of $150! In all, it was a great turn-out and contribution, especially for an event so close the holidays.
Thanks to Abe and the Tizra crew for letting us do the Food Drive as part of their evening, and to Jack Templin and the Providence Geeks for their support and encouragement for Geeks for Good’s efforts. We’re looking forward to our next project, which will be helping a local YMCA branch get some fund-raising training materials online.
Happy New Year, everyone! We’re so glad to have had you along for the ride in 2008 and very much look forward to what 2009 will bring. Lots of nice surprises for our customers, methinks 
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Tags: Community, food drive, geeks for good, providence geeks
Once again, social media has collided my worlds in an interesting (and hopefully beneficial) way. Last week, I was lamenting on my personal Twitter account how many children and families were going to be impacted by all of the recent lay-offs across the country. My friend responded with a story about a single mom in Providence who didn’t have enough money to buy her hungry kids snacks. Within minutes another friend, T.J. Sondermann, had proposed that we use the next Providence Geeks meeting as a venue where we could collect food for our local food bank.
I contacted Jack Templin, who with Brian Jepson runs the monthly Providence Geeks meeting, and pitched the idea via email. Always supportive of local efforts, Jack and Brian were quickly on-board. BatchBlue president Pamela O’Hara then contacted a friend who works at the Rhode Island Food Bank and worked out the logistics of what was most needed and how we would collect it.
Jack requested an image for the newsletter he was sending out announcing the event, so Adam and I decided to have a little fun with it. We spent some time working up a couple quick logo ideas, then posted the results on Flickr and asked people on Twitter to vote for their favorites. We got a lot of great feedback and ended up combining two designs for the final logo used on the webpage announcing the first offical Geeks for Good project: tomorrow’s food drive at Providence Geeks. Thanks largely to social media and our people network, this was all organized in about three days.
Here are a few of the takeaways from this experience:
- Your social network is filled with people who are ready, willing and able to pitch in.
- Don’t be afraid to propose your ideas to folks who can help. They just might say yes!
- Try and do good where and when you can. The world can benefit for your unique skills and talents, whatever they may be.
We look forward to Providence Geeks tomorrow night, where our friends from Tizra are presenting and we’ll also be helping out some folks in need. Hope to see some of you there!
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Tags: Community, food drive, geeks4good, providence geeks, Social Media
