We’ve joined forces again this year with the awesome Providence Geeks crew to host our second annual “Geeks for Good” food drive. The food collected will go to the very worthy Rhode Island Community Food Bank, and we’re hoping to have someone from the organization come and tell us a little about their efforts to help local families in need to kick off the night’s event.
Here are the details: When: Tonight! Wednesday, December 16, 2009 5:30-8:30 (we’ll be there starting at about 5:00 to collect donations) Where: AS220 in downtown Providence, RI What: Geekery, beer, networking and goodwill Who: Free and open to anyone Why: Because you are nice and we like you
Please bring your non-perishable food items with you; we’ll be collecting them at the door (here’s a list of their most needed food items.)
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
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!
The Engineers of Tomorrow display their programming trophy
When Pam and I had our first meetings way back in the winter of 2006, even before we had fully fleshed out what our first product was going to be, we talked about what causes we were going to support as a company and in what ways. As a team, we decided that the issues closest to our hearts were promoting technology and education, improving the lives of children, and supporting fellow entrepreneurs.
We were thrilled to learn of kiva.org, which allowed us to lend small amounts of money to entrepreneurs in other countries. We became lenders long before we started charging for our own product. We now get regular updates on our two entrepreneurs, who have since paid back 83% and 50% of their loans respectively! Once the debt is paid off, we can lend it to some other folks. How cool is that?
Over the past year, various members of the BatchBlue team have presented at Johnson & Wales University, the University of Rhode Island, and Rhode Island’s “We Mean Business“, which is an event promote and support local business. In February, we helped sponsor NewBCamp08 in Providence, which was an (un)conference held at University of Rhode Island on emerging technologies, and Adam gave a well-received presentation on getting started with web standards.
This past spring, BatchBlue became a proud sponsor of the Rhode Island Engineers of Tomorrow LEGO Robotics team, who went on to win 3rd place in the programming category of the 2008 First LEGO League World Festival, held in Atlanta, GA.
Because we are such a small company and still getting started, what we do is not a lot. We do what we can mostly by volunteering our time and services. But last week, just before we took the stage at our Providence Geeks presentation, a woman and a young man came up to introduce themselves. It was Mary Johnson and her son from the Engineers of Tomorrow, who had specifically come down that evening to thank us for our support.
Meeting Mary and her charming, delightful son reinforced the idea that even giving a little of your time or money can go a long way in the lives of those you are helping. Congratulations to the Engineers of Tomorrow: we look forward to seeing what your tomorrows will bring!
Last night, Pam, Michelle, and I gave a presentation at the June Providence Geek Dinner (Providence Business News covered it here). Good friend and Geeks Co-founder Brian Jepson interviewed Michelle and I after the event to ask us about BatchBook, our customer service strategy, and how we keep our social media sanity.
