Hungry For Music

Hello everyone. Tonight we are pleased to one again highlight Hungry For Music. Our good friend Saul first introduced us to this wonderful organization last year and are pleased to help promote their 14th Annual Hungry for Crawfish Boil! The Boil will be held Saturday, May 9th Ft. Hunt Park, Alexandria, VA. There will be plenty of food and of course music!

Tickets are $35.00. Click here to purchase tickets

As stated on their website "Hungry For Music is a grassroots volunteer-driven 501 (c)(3) charity organization with a nationwide and international outreach. Hungry for Music's mission is to inspire underprivileged children (and others) by bringing positive musical and creative experiences into their lives. Since becoming a non-profit in 1994, Hungry for Music has brought the healing quality of music to thousands of people through its musical instrument donations, concerts, and workshops. We support our programs through memberships, benefit concerts and events, raffles, and the sale of Hungry for Music produced compact discs."

Hungry for Music's vision for the future is to firmly establish its programs and create a music education center. Once this becomes a reality, Hungry for Music will be primed to provide ongoing programs to enhance young people's creativity and self-esteem.

How you can Help Hungry for Music:
Become a HFM member
Volunteer
Donate an instrument
Donate sheet music
Donate books
Donate music related toys
Buy a HFM compact disc
Buy a HFM t-shirt

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- Brudgeport 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

Try Change Newsletter

Thank you,
Vince & Chrissie

Life Pieces to Masterpieces

Tonight Try Change brings you an outstanding organization that's doing great things in the DC community. We came across this organizations while reading the" Washingtonian " and where amazed by it's many accomplishments . As stated on their website "Life Pieces to Masterpieces is a non-profit, arts-based, comprehensive youth development organization. We serve boys and young men ages 3 to 21 living in low-income and public housing east of the Anacostia River in Washington, DC.

Their Goal:

"Life Pieces to Masterpieces continuing goal is to nurture, embrace, encourage, and elevate African American boys and young men. Daily participation in LPTM’s artistic, academic, spiritual, and mentoring activities help turn the many challenges in the lives of these boys into opportunities for success, self-reliance, and resiliency."

They have received many awards but more importantly have made a difference in the lives of may young men. Here are some of the results:

• Over 90% of LPTM participants have not become involved in the juvenile justice system or fathered children


• Approximately 90% have shown improved behavior at home and in school
  75% have significantly increased their overall GPA


• LPTM Apprentices have created over 1000 pieces of art over the past 11 years, exhibited locally, nationally and internationally, including The World Bank, Children's Hospital, the Smithsonian, and charitable foundations throughout Washington, DC. and FIDDEM in Paris, France

You can help this organization by tutoring a boy in the homework center or help chaperon field trips. You can also donate to the group. $25 covers two weeks of snacks for one boy; $1,000 pays for a him to participate in the program three days a week for a year.

You can contact them at:

Life Pieces To Masterpieces Inc.at

Merritt Middle School

5002 Hayes Street, NE

Washington, DC 20019

Phone: 202-399-7703

Fax: 202-399-7731

Contact: Gretchen Martens, Deputy DirectorEmail: gmartens@lifepieces.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- Brudgeport 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
Try Change Newsletter

Thank you,

Vince & Chrissie

Why.

Typically each week we like to bring you a story about an individual or person that is making a difference in our community. However; a question was posed to me during a recent visit to one of the stores our shirts are currently in that got me thinking...

The manager asked me: Why did I start Try Change T-shirts? Is it for the money ? Or is it to get my name out in the business world?

I've told the Try Change story a hundred times...How Chrissie and I spotted a young lady wearing an offensive (with curse words) shirt at a supermarket on a Sunday afternoon then ran into a young kid (around 7-8) wearing a shirt with a marijuana leaf with the slogan -just hanging out with my bud on the back. But having someone ask me whether I did it for money or personal attention really made me think again how everything started and what still motivates me today.

So here's why we continue to promote Try Change T-shirts and donate 10% of our sales to Volunteers of America, adopt an homeless family during the holidays, donate clothes and conduct a Charity Yard Sale.

• The number of homeless families in the Washington Dc Region increased 15% in the last year.
  
  
• The actual number is 5,263 families and 6,749 individuals counted...that's 12,012 and this includes children. Something many people do not realize considering that we live in one of the richest areas in the country.


• Area Food Banks have seen an increase of families, even middle class families at their facilities.


• How many more variations of Skulls can we possible put on T-Shirts?


• How long can we continue to believe that the images of sex, drugs and violence has no effect on our young people? Really, come on now...


• Why not try something different?


• How can we observe, then support, businesses that do not give back to the communities that they profit from?


• It's the right thing to do.
  

These are just some of the things that still motivates us today. We believe that it's our obligation to speak out. We do not believe in a overall censorship of music, film or the arts. What we believe is that we as a people should offer a product to those that would like to promote a message of Hope, Peace, Faith, Diversity and Positive Change while at the same time helping the homeless in the DC,VA and MD area.

We don't care about your political or religious affiliation, sexual preferences or racial makeup. We care about helping those who need it while inspiring change in others. On our shirts are various positive quotes that we hope will inspire the person wearing the shirt as well as individuals seeing the shirt.

One such quote is:

"Every saint has a past and ever sinner has a future"

It's never too late for change :-)

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- Brudgeport 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
Try Change Newsletter

Miriam's Kitchen

Tonight we are featuring one of the organizations we met at the Help the Homeless Walkathon...

Did you know....

That there are more than 6,000 homeless men, women and children in Washington, DC on any given night.

Of that total, nearly 1,200 individuals are chronically homeless--meaning they have been homeless for a year or more, or four or more times in the past three years.

Looking for ways to help the homeless in the DC area?

Here's a great place to start - Miriams Kitchen

Miriams Kitchen provides free, high-quality services to the homeless in the Nation's Capital every weekday morning through four core programs: Breakfast Program, Case Management Program, After-Breakfast Program and Arnold's Place Transitional Housing Program.

How can you help?- Here's just few examples of how you can help

Help Serve Breakfast

Help Serve Lunch

Help Sort Food at the Capital Area Food

Host a Clothing or Toiletry Drive

To learn more visit http://www.miriamskitchen.org/HELP/Volunteer/tabid/69/Default.aspx

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- Brudgeport 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

Try Change Newsletter