Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic

At Try Change we like highlight individuals and organizations that are making a difference in our communities. We feel it's up to each of us to reach out to those who are less fortunate, especially in these tough economic times.

Try Change would like to introduce you to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic. I recently met Ms. Jessica F. Soklow, the Community Relations Manager, at a company event last week. At the meeting Ms. Soklow informed me of all the great things Make-A-Wish does for children with life threatening medical conditions. What impressed me the most were the many fundraising opportunities there are for individuals and companies looking for ways to make a difference in a child's life. From car washes to bingo parties, there's something for everyone!

About Make -A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic

As noted on their website:

"The Make-A-Wish Foundation® of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that fulfills the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. The Foundation serves children who reside in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland and Northern Virginia.Founded in 1983, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. has fulfilled the wishes of more than 6,000 children fighting life-threatening medical conditions such as cancer, pediatric AIDS, cystic fibrosis, Duchene’s Muscular Dystrophy and heart disease. A wish fulfilled creates a memorable experience for a child fighting a life-threatening medical condition and gives him or her something positive to think about instead of medical treatments and hospital visits. Recent wishes include visiting Walt Disney World® Resort, taking a family vacation, receiving a home computer, having a bedroom redecorated and meeting the Jonas Brothers. The Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic, Inc. is affiliated with the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America."

Please visit the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-Atlantic's new website. There you can learn about volunteer opportunities as well as the organizations latest news and events.

Jessica, thank you for taking the time to inform us about your great organization!

Thanks for making a difference!

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.You can find our shirts at:

Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall
Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall
Shadows in the Forestville Centre
SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall
Millennium in Georgetown
Sport Zone- Selected locations
D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
First Thangs First- Waldorf MD
Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD
Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD
New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA
Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV
Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV
Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA
Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
Fashion World- Hurlock MD
City Wear- Farmville, VA

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Keen

At Try Change we know how important it is to give back to the community we live in. We also know how challenging itcan be given the high pressure world in which we live. However we found a unique way to give back that can be done on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

How could you give back on any given weekend? How about being a volunteer coach for developmentally disabled children and young adults. You can do so at KEEN Greater DC!

As noted on their website "KEEN is a national, nonprofit volunteer-led organization that provides one-to-one recreational opportunities for children and young adults with developmental and physical disabilities at no cost to their families and caregivers. KEEN's mission is to foster the self-esteem, confidence, skills and talents of its athletes through non-competitive activities, allowing young people facing even the most significant challenges to meet their individual goals"

"All of KEEN's programs are based on a single principle: pair a trained volunteer with an athlete and let them discover together how much they can do. Programs are all open and unstructured, allowing athletes facing significant challenges to have fun and be successful. KEEN Greater DC now operates a dozen programs throughout the national capital area"

Interested in volunteering? You can contact KEEN at:

KEEN Greater DC

P.O.Box 341590

Bethesda, MD 20827-1590

301/770-3200

mailto:20827-1590301/770-3200info@keengreaterdc.org

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.You can find our shirts at:
Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall

Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall

Shadows in the Forestville Centre

SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall

Millennium in Georgetown

Sport Zone- Selected locations

D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD

First Thangs First- Waldorf MD

Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD

Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD

New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA

Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV

Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV

Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA

Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD

Fashion World- Hurlock MD

City Wear- Farmville, VA

Help us pass along the Try Change message by joining one of our blog communities and asking your blog community members to visit our blog.

My Space

Razoo

Idealist

Change.org

MyBlogLog

BlogCatalog

Twitter

All for Good

Tonight we at Try Change brings you a very exciting website for those who are looking for ways to volunteer in their community. All for Good takes volunteer listings from several sites including Craiglist and Meetup and places them under one umbrella.


At All for Good you can:

• Find volunteer activities near you


• Share volunteer activities with your friends


• See what friends are interested in


• Track volunteer activities that you care about

Visit http://www.allforgood.org/ to learn how you can also add the site to your blog, website and Facebook.

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.You can find our shirts at:

Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall
Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall
Shadows in the Forestville Centre
SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall
Millennium in Georgetown
Sport Zone- Selected locations
D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
First Thangs First- Waldorf MD
Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD
Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD
New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA
Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV
Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV
Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA
Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
Fashion World- Hurlock MD
City Wear- Farmville, VA
Help us pass along the Try Change message by joining one of our blog communities and asking your blog community members to visit our blog.
My Space
Razoo
Idealist
Change.org
MyBlogLog
BlogCatalog
Twitter

Ashoka

This week at Try Change we would like to introduce you to Ashoka. Never heard of them? Well, if you're a social entrepreneur you need to know about them.

Here's some information pulled from thier website:

"Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Since 1981, we have elected over 2,000 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries.
With our global community, we develop models for collaboration and design infrastructure needed to advance the field of social entrepreneurship and the citizen sector.
Our Fellows inspire others to adopt and spread their innovations - demonstrating to all citizens that they too have the potential to be powerful changemakers

How do they support social entrepenuers?

Support Social Entrepreneurs
-->
Ashoka invests in people. We search the world for leading social entrepreneurs and at the launch stage, provide these entrepreneurs—Ashoka Fellows—a living stipend for an average of three years, allowing them to focus full-time on building their institutions and spreading their ideas. We also provide our Fellows with a global support network of their peers and partnerships with professional consultants. Once elected to the Ashoka Fellowship, Fellows benefit from this community for life.

Venture
Venture is the mechanism through which Ashoka finds and supports the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. Ashoka was founded on the Venture model 25 years ago, and Venture remains the heart of Ashoka—the work upon which all of our efforts depend.We believe that the growth of a global citizen sector begins with the work of individual social entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs drive the sector forward, responding to new challenges and changing needs. They are rooted in local communities but think and act globally. They are the ultimate role models and the pillars of Ashoka’s vision of Everyone a Changemaker™. "

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.

You can find our shirts at:

Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall

Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall

Shadows in the Forestville Centre

SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall

Millennium in Georgetown

Sport Zone- Selected locations

D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD

First Thangs First- Waldorf MD

Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD

Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD

New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA

Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV

Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV

Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA

Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD

Fashion World- Hurlock MD

City Wear- Farmville, VA

Help us pass along the Try Change message by joining one of our blog communities and asking your blog community members to visit our blog.

My Space

Razoo

Idealist

Change.org

MyBlogLog

BlogCatalog

Twitter

Walk for the Homeless

At Try Change we like to recognize organizations that are making a difference in their communities. Volunteers of America Chesapeake is one such organization. We feel especially proud of VOA Chesapeake since we are official partners of their organization.

On Saturday November 7, you can go to the Hilda Barg Homeless Prevention Center and join them for their walk and litter patrol along the Route 1 corridor otherwise known as Jefferson David Highway.

Registration forms are at the center and are $25 for adults and $15 for youth up to age 25. Register by October 25 to have your walk shirt assured on November 7 for the walk. Shirt distribution and Center tours begin at 11am. The Walk begins at noon. Teams will walk for a half-hour in any direction and come back a slightly different route to pick up additional litter.

The Center is especially the kids that live there or have lived there, make regular efforts to improve the appearance of the Route 1 corridor.

All registrations are tax deductible And monetary donations to the Center are tax deductible. Hilda Barg Homeless Prevention Center operated by Volunteers of America Chesapeake, serves singles and families. 50% of our homeless residents are children. The average age of their children was six years of age in 2008. The national average is nine.

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.You can find our shirts at:Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall
Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall
Shadows in the Forestville Centre
SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall
Millennium in Georgetown
Sport Zone- Selected locations
D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
First Thangs First- Waldorf MD
Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD
Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD
New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA
Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV
Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV
Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA
Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
Fashion World- Hurlock MD
City Wear- Farmville, VA

Help us pass along the Try Change message by joining one of our blog communities and asking your blog community members to visit our blog.
My Space
Razoo
Idealist
Change.org
MyBlogLog
BlogCatalog
Twitter

The Crumley House

At Try Change we like to recognized individuals and organizations that are making a difference in our communities. One such organization is the Crumley House located in Limestone Tennessee. I recently had the pleasure to tour this facility during a trip to Jonesborough Tennessee.

The Crumley House specializes in the rehabilitation of individuals who have suffered brain injuries.

They offer over 20 programs including:

• Vocational & Pre-Vocational Training
• Independent Living Skills
• Behavior Modification
• Competitive Employment Placement
• Community Re-entry
• Job Coaching
• Daily Living Skills
  College Tutoring

With 14 rooms and plenty of land Crumley House offers it's residents not only some of the programs listed above but also exercise programs, fishing and swimming and an Equestrian program as well. The Equestrian program is a special source of pride for Crumley House since this allows some of the wheelchair residents to actually ride horses.

As discussed on their website:

"The Crumley House opened it's doors in the summer of 1992. Although from a far this may have looked like the beginning, the dream that became a reality was born in 1981. On a September afternoon, the lives of then 14 year old Lori Beth Ford and her family were dramatically and forever changed. Following a tragic automobile accident, this beautiful and vibrant teenager became a brain injury survivor.
After several weeks in a coma, Lori Beth awakened with a frontal lobe injury to her brain. She was unable to walk, speak, or eat. The accident ended years of ballet, horseback riding, cheerleading, and many other outstanding endeavors. However, it did not end her life The goals changed but the drive and support of her family did not. Ms. Barrett, who knew very little on the subject of traumatic brain injury, did not hesitate. She immersed herself in Lori's hands-on rehabilitation and recovery. She discovered throughout the process that there was a crucial missing link in the rehabilitation cycle. There was no place to support the transition between acute rehabilitation, community reentry, and independent living skills. From this idea grew what is now The Crumley House."

During my tour, I witnessed many moving experiences but if there was one thing that stayed with me it's this----

Anyone one of us , at any time can suffer a brain injury.

Don't think so? Here are some sobering statistics:

• Every 21 seconds someone receives a brain injury in the US
• Every 5 minutes one of these people will die
• Of those who do survive (70,000 to 90,000) will have a lifelong loss of function
• Traumatic Brain Injury is the leading killer and cause of disability in teenagers and young adults

The team at Crumley House is doing a fantastic job by helping victims of Traumatic Brain Injury re-enter society. Please help Try Change spread the word about The Crumley House. The Crumley House Brain Injury Foundations has been set up to accept donations to assist with a planned expansion and continuation of the much needed services they provide.

You can learn more about Crumley House at:

http://www.crumleyhouse.com/

Phone 423-257-3644

Toll Free 866-892-7246

Email- staff@crumleyhouse.com

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.
You can find our shirts at:
Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall

Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall

Shadows in the Forestville Centre

SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall

Millennium in Georgetown

Sport Zone- Selected locations

D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD

First Thangs First- Waldorf MD

Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD

Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD

New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA

Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV

Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV

Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA

Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD

Fashion World- Hurlock MD

City Wear- Farmville, VA

Help us pass along the Try Change message by joining one of our blog communities and asking your blog community members to visit our blog.

My Space

Razoo

Idealist

Change.org

MyBlogLog

BlogCatalog

Twitter

Yard Sale Success!

Sorry it took us so long to post but the Try Change Charity Yard Sale was a big success! We raised over $300 for Volunteers of America Chesapeake and donated two loads of household items and clothes to the shelter! We were afraid that no one would show up because of the threat of rain but people were actually there before we had even finished unloading. Thank you to everyone that had a word with their connections about the rain issue :-)

Thank you to our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors for supporting our efforts! It was just amazing the amount of donations we received. Special thanks to Rose & David for all of the help! We never could have done it without you.

Just a reminder that all of this was in support of Volunteers of America Chesapeake. We encourage all of our readers to visit their website and learn about what VOA Chesapeake is doing in our area and what VOA as a whole is doing across the country. We have chosen to support this charity for many reasons but one of which is their many programs and direct involvement in the communities they support. With the recession and the deep decline in the housing market effecting every one, there is even more reason to support VOA and their programs. Homelessness and drug abuse effects the entire community not just individuals. Each of us truly can make a difference!

Thank you again to every one for the support!

Chrissie & Vince

At Try Change we feel we can all make a difference. For us, we donate 10& of all our profits to Volunteers of America which serves the homeless in the DC,VA & MD areas. We also adopt a homeless family during the holiday season, donate clothes as well as hold an annual Charity yard sale for VOA.

You can find our shirts at:

Fashion Mechanics in the Springfield and Manassas Mall
Evado in the Fair Oaks Mall
Shadows in the Forestville Centre
SWANK in the Pentagon City Mall
Millennium in Georgetown
Sport Zone- Selected locations
D-Block-Lakeforest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
First Thangs First- Waldorf MD
Next Level Clothing- Ellicott City MD
Turning Point- Laurel Centre Mall, Laurel MD
New York Fashions- Charlottesville VA
Fashion Kings- Bridgeport WV
Hot Stepper -Martinsburg WV
Urban Flavor- Old Town, Manassas, VA
Heartbeat- Lake Forest Mall, Gaithersburg MD
Fashion World- Hurlock MD
City Wear- Farmville, VA

Help us pass along the Try Change message by joining one of our blog communities and asking your blog community members to visit our blog.
My Space
Razoo
Idealist
Change.org
MyBlogLog
BlogCatalog
Twitter