Posted by Gabe on June 28, 2010 under Kids Are Heroes Day, Kids are Heroes | 
Normally when we have an event like we did Saturday I write about it right away. This day was so powerful I have been simply enjoying the thoughts that have been bouncing in my head over the last couple of days. If only everyone could experience something like this.
Saturday, June 26 marked the first Kids Are Heroes Day held at Boyd’s Bear Country in Gettysburg, PA. Heroes from our web site traveled from all over the country (and even Canada) to be there and raise awareness for their causes. Special guest stars Levar Fisher (ex-NFL star, former Arizona Cardinal) and Devin Wyman (ex Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots) put on a show that both young and old will never forget. We ended the day with a private reception at the hotel where all the heroes made lasting friendships, (yes, some were even crushes) and the parents celebrated the day by establishing their own bonds.
The Heroes
In attendance were Casey Landahl (MD), Ricky Springer (GA), JT Robertson (NY), Wesley Prankard (Ont, Canada), Bailey Reese (FL), Kennedy Kulish (PA) and MaryMargaret O’Neill (MD). As many of you know, Levar Fisher has been a partner of Kids Are Heroes for a few months now, but this was the first time I had the privilege of meeting him in person. It was important to me to have him meet all the heroes and get to hear from their own voices what their passions were. In doing so I was also hearing some of them for the first time and I admit I was moved to tears when I experienced the focus, determination, clarity and passion coming from these kids who are so young. Levar did indeed draw inspiration from them as you could tell from his speech.
The Show
We started by introducing the “adult heroes” so that they could in turn give out awards to the younger ones. Joddie Walker, Founder of the Children’s Advocacy Center, Richard Baumgardner, Commander of the American Legion Post 202 and Officer Mark Landahl gave heartfelt tributes to the kids and Boyd’s had prepared awards for them. All the kids are so humble and they do not seek out accolades, but that is part of the reason they deserve them. I had been hearing a lot about the speech Levar and Devin were going to deliver, but nothing can compare to seeing it in person. It had a great mix of fun and inspiration as the kids were giddy with excitement. Devin Wyman is a big boy. His 6’8″ frame boasting 350 lbs can never go unnoticed. When I shook his hand for the first time I had to look down because I thought he was wearing a catcher’s mitt. Nope, it was just his hand. He thrilled the audience by lifting two children up over his head, bent a steel bar with his bare hands while holding it in his teeth, turned a frying pan into a burrito with his hands and exploded a Sprite can all over the heroes to their amazement. All these “tricks” came with a message made to both teach and entertain. Levar then spoke about a lot of things, but with great skill took the heroes’ stories and related them with inspiration for both young and old to enjoy. His sense of humor and eloquence will have a lasting impression on all of those who had the privilege to hear him.
The Reception
Have you ever dreaded going to a party where you didn’t know anyone? Well before this weekend we had only met the Landahls as they have attended several of our local events. You know how sometimes kids can be shy around new kids? All that went out the window on this wonderful day. The reception was specifically for the heroes and their families (Levar attended as well) so that they could get to know each other. It was held poolside at the hotel so the kids could play and have fun. It was scheduled for 6-8PM. Well we had to leave “early” at 9:45 because we had a 45 minute drive back home and had to tend to our dogs. The kids simply didn’t want it to end and quite frankly neither did I. It reminded me that whenever we do this an “after-party” is as important as any other event during the day. It was so moving it led to an idea. Many other sites that recognize kids award money to their charities but they have to get votes to get the funds. It promotes competition among the kids who are just trying to do good for other people. I think this is the wrong message. These kids are the future leaders of tomorrow, so why not teach and encourage them to collaborate with each other at an early age? Non-profits would do better to help each other than to compete. I plan to develop this idea and incorporate it into our web site somehow.
My heartfelt thanks go out to all the heroes who attended, to Levar and Devin for being so awesome, to my wife Michelle for making it so special, and to Dan at Boyd’s Bear Country for working so hard to support us.
Everything that happened on Saturday deserved nothing less than a national stage. I can’t remember the last time I have been so moved. Being involved in a non-profit can be trying and very difficult at times. This is true for both the parents and the heroes. Events like these remind us why we do it and recharge all of our batteries. I think mine’s a little overcharged right now. I just made an appointment with Christina at the FSK Mall to start planning Kids Are Heroes Day in October.
Posted by Gabe on June 20, 2010 under Twitter |
I love this quote from ex-President Bill Clinton: “If you’re good at bad-mouthing people then you can get a job on the radio.” Truer words have not been said. Now most people do not use Twitter as a platform to spread gossip or to inflame others. But can it be used to exact revenge on companies that have “wronged” you or given you bad service? Absolutely? Does it get results? Sometimes. Is it good practice? Depends on who you talk to.
As with my other posts, I am not shy about giving my opinion as to how it applies to me, and believe me I have one on this subject so here goes.
Regardless of my opinion on it I have done it. I bad-mouthed at least one company on Twitter. I did it more than once (I think) but less than a handful of times. And it did produce results the one time I remember doing it. It was a printing company. I am a BIG believer in customer service. I was told by ths company that they were right and I was wrong and they would allow me to reorder if I paid them an additional 50% of their value plus shipping. (Plus I had to ship back the items in question at my own expense.) I felt it was their fault and that they should do better, so I tweeted about it calling out their Twitter ID. I didn’t really expect anything, especially from the way I was treated by them, but I somehow felt better by doing it. Well I was contacted within 24 hours by someone else in the company who ended up sending me a whole new order (corrected) for free without asking me to return anything. Now that is service. I was extremely happy with the result and continue to use them as a printing company.
But was that the right thing to do? I’m not sure. You may have even formed an opinion of me (rightly or wrongly) based on whet I described. The bottom line is I do not like to see negative tweets on Twitter. Period. That’s just my story and I’m sticking to it. And if you do it a lot you will get unfollowed from me. People have enough negativity in their lives without having to share yours. There was another instance where I retweeted a colleague’s complaint about a company. I knew who was tweeting it and he seemed justified. Later I decided that wasn’t smart so I deleted my retweet. He even asked me why I rescinded. I told him I like keeping my tweets positive.
Some people see Twitter as a great “equalizer” where we can test the limits of customer service. Companies that are good at it are constantly trolling for negative tweets against them so they can “right the ship”. When they do it it shows great customer service. No matter how good the company is there is bound to be a complaint against them sometime. So I leave it to you to decide when (or if there) is a good time to get mad on Twitter.
Now as far as bad-mouthing other people to purposefully smear them, no matter what the circumstance, I highly recommend against it. Even if you are right it’s going to make you look bad and you have no way to predict the back lash it can create. I remember an instance where I was scheduled to appear on an internet talk show with a relatively famous Twitter personality. For some reason she called out the integrity of another of my colleagues, questioning his motives for his charitable efforts, hinting that he is in it for his own furtherance. The person she called out had many supporters, I being one of them. I thought that what she had done was totally uncalled for, but I stayed out of it to a degree. The accused person’s supporters came at the accuser with a vengeance. She spent the next few days backtracking and eventually apologizing. It was clear that she did it under pressure and not for the real reasons so people still came at her. It was truly ugly. I cancelled my appearance on her show partly out of respect for the accused and also partly because I didn’t want to be exposed to the “radiation” that now surrounded her. I can’t think of a good reason that people should bad-mouth each other on Twitter. Thankfully, this is the only incident I have seen and people on Twitter (at least the ones that I follow) are always respectful of others.
Posted by Gabe on June 15, 2010 under Kids are Heroes |
On a day when one of our heroes got the biggest perk ever as a result of being involved with Kids Are Heroes, I felt it appropriate to talk about the benefits available to our heroes once they join our community. Today young Ricky Springer makes his debut at the E3 Gaming Expo in Los Angeles, CA. He is demonstrating one of our sponsors’ latest technologies at this huge gaming event. His charity is also enjoying the $1000 donation derived from this effort. Read more about how this opportunity arose by clicking this link.
At Kids Are Heroes we are always looking for opportunities that may further our cause along with those of our heroes. Here are a few of the “treasures” that come along with being listed on our website:
Kids Are Heroes Day
Our local mall in Frederick, Maryland hosts the Kids Are Heroes Day each October which involves all of our heroes as they are provided a platform to discuss their charities and raise money. This is a great day of celebration as we bring all the heroes together and recognize them for the hard work they do for others.
Fountain Coin Donation
Each month the same mall donates its fountain coins to one of our heroes’ charities. (Locals only.)
Television Exposure
Our friend Nikki Burdine from our local NBC affiliate has created a monthly feature involving one of our heroes. Last month Casey Landahl was the subject and Nikki was so enamored with her that she gave her an additional spot. (Locals only.)
Charity Choice Gift Cards
In partnership with charitychoice.org we provide gift cards that support the charities of the heroes that wish to participate.
Social Media Assistance
We have been working in social media for quite some time now and we do it on a daily basis. We are eager to share our experiences with Twitter and Facebook to help our heroes gain awareness.
Social Media Promotion
Currently we enjoy over 20,000 Facebook fans and Twitter followers. We are more than willing to share our heroes’ stories with all of them on a regular basis. In addition, we put our heroes who are involved with Twitter on a list that we encourage others to follow.
Nonprofit Establishment
We recently went through the process of making Kids Are Heroes a nonprofit organization. This is our second time in doing this and we are happy to share our experiences and assistance in this matter wherever appropriate.
Featured Hero
We have a regular spot on our blog for what we call our “Featured Hero”. We interview the older kids to give them yet another platform to raise awareness for what they are doing.
Suffice it to say that we are always looking for new opportunities for heroes. We also recognize that by doing things together we encourage each other and validate each other’s efforts.
Posted by Gabe on June 9, 2010 under Twitter |
I haven’t been writing about Twitter for a while because quite frankly I ran out of things to say about it. Lately I’ve been formulating new thoughts. I was on vacation in North Carolina last week. We brought our dogs into a wonderful store called the Outer Barx. This is a place we have been to in the past and they have fun events like their “Yappy Hour”. I asked the owner if he was on Twitter. His response was “No I don’t have time for that. I really need to focus on sales.” Now if it were six months ago, I may have argued with him telling him about our most recent successes, and giving him all kinds of reasons to reconsider. For some reason I have this insufferable urge to discuss social media with strangers. I have learned however that that tends to be a wasted effort. Even when I have shown people all of the successes we have received they don’t seem to get it. Someone once said to me that not all people can be a successful on Twitter. In the beginning I assumed that everyone could use it effectively, but I’m now finally starting to understand that statement.
To truly gain value from social media, you must know how to use it. One person who is demonstrated true skill at leveraging social media is Mary Kurek. She is one of our ambassadors and she does this for a living. She was responsible for connecting us with Levar Fisher, a former Arizona Cardinal who tours the country speaking about us. She also recently connected us with CTA Digital, a company who not only has become a gold sponsor, but they also offered one of our young heroes an opportunity of a lifetime. She has shown me that Twitter is much more than “re-tweets” and “followfridays”. I have finally learned that Twitter is more about true connections and less about quantifying followers. I personally have a mission to get better at this every day as what we have gained from social media so far has proven to be priceless for Kids Are Heroes.
So I guess this means I will get off my soapbox about Twitter when I talk to people. I admit this is a behavior I should’ve adopted from the beginning. Should anyone engage me about the subject however I hope they are prepared to get an earful.
On a side note, many of you know that I broke my finger on my vacation. Even though it’s just the pinky finger on my left hand, it makes it very arduous to type. So I wrote this blog with the help of Google Voice Recognition via the Droid. I simply dictate into the notes app and email the results. I have a few things to clean up like punctuation, capital letters and the few unrecognized words. I must say however if you speak very clearly it picks up things with incredible accuracy. Gotta love technology!
Posted by Gabe on June 1, 2010 under Kids Are Heroes Day, Kids are Heroes |
Some days I wonder if not enough is happening with Kids Are Heroes, while other days I think that soon we won’t be able to handle the expansion that is certain to come. One thing is for sure, we have been gradually getting bigger and bigger, and forging more relationships with people and companies that can further our cause. Case in point: In February we got an idea with the help of one of our heroes’ moms to approach Boyd’s Bear Country and see if they would be interested in hosting a “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” at their store. They agreed, and thanks to the success of the TWO events we had there they also offered to host a Kids Are Heroes Day in the summer time. If you have never been to this store it’s hard to describe because it is SO different than any other experience you have ever had with a retail store. Actually it doesn’t even look like a store — it’s a HUGE four-story barn that boasts 130,000 square feet of retail space and sits on 123 acres nestled in the mountains of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And even though it’s called Bear Country they sell a lot more than just bears. It’s definitely something all kids and adults alike should experience.
So why is this such a big event? There are several answers to this:
1) This will be our first event where special guest star (and ex-NFL player) Levar Fisher will not only be giving a motivational speech to kids and parents in the afternoon, but he will also be hosting a mini-football camp in the morning.
2) The folks at Boyd’s have estimated there will be at least 500 kids in attendance.
3) There will be 11 heroes from our web site coming from all over the US and Canada.
4) This will be our third bear donation event where kids can collect money to pay for stuffed bears at a discount price. If they donate a minimum of two bears, Boyd’s will let them build an additional bear for free for them to donate or keep for themselves. All donated bears will be given to the Philadelphia Police Department of behalf of Bears on Patrol, a non-profit that supplies bears to the police so that they can in turn hand them out to kids who are in difficult situations.
Kids Are Heroes Day at Boyd’s will occur on Saturday, June 26th, 2010. This is truly going to be an incredible day your family won’t want to miss.
Here are the heroes scheduled to appear:
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| Evan Frank |
Harper’s Ferry, WV |
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Recently, Evan opted to not receive gifts for his 8th birthday party, but rather asked his guests to make donations to the “Water for Life” project. Evan has planned a Valentine’s Dinner and mini-concert at his church with all proceeds going to the project. At last count, Evan had raised $7000.00. He is an ambassador for the Water for Life project where a goal of $4800 has been set. $4800 is needed to install a complete well and provide clean drinking water for an entire village. Evan has set a goal of 100 wells in his lifetime. |
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| Kennedy Kulish |
Lancaster, PA |
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Kennedy Kulish started her self initiated service project of “Kisses for Kaeden” in November of 2003 on behalf of her baby brother Kaeden who was born with several heart defects and needing several open heart surgeries before his 1st birthday. Kennedy (who was only 6 at the time) wanted to make a difference in helping other “Kaeden’s” and their families. Recruiting friends, classmates and team mates Kennedy held a fundraiser for Kaeden’s first birthday celebration asking family and friends to bring monetary donations for the hospital that helped Kaeden instead of normal birthday gifts for the already “spoiled” lil Kaeden. Raising over $2000.00, Kennedy was inspired to do more. |
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| Casey Landahl |
New Market, MD |
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Casey is no stranger to donating. She has grown and donated her hair to “Locks of Love” twice, participates in the annual “Buddy Walk” for Down Syndrome, and helps her elderly neighbors. Many of her guests found it hard to believe Casey wanted to do this. They called and asked if she was serious and thought she would cry when no gifts came for her. Casey continued to say that she wanted to help the cats and did not care about gifts. She had a wonderful time at her party and feels great to have “helped the cats find a new home”. Casey is wise and generous beyond her years. I am so proud to have daughter like her and am thankful her younger sister has such a special big sister to look up to! |
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| MaryMargaret O’Neill |
Ijamsville, MD |
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MaryMargaret O’Neill is the founder of Kids Are Heroes. In March of 2008, she asked her dad to build her a web site. “I want to help animals,” she said. Out of that discussion came the beginning of the Kids Are Heroes organization. She has been featured on the site three separate times. For her ninth birthday she gave up her gifts for the Defenders of Wildlife. In the summer of 2008 she and her friends held a lemonade stand which turned into a donation of 80 Webkinz for kids at a local cancer camp. Her most recent accomplishment was to deliver 250 MP3 players to two area youth hospitals. She purchased them with money she raised over the course of more than a year. |
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| Wesley Prankard |
Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada |
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Wesley Prankard camped out in the cold for 24 hours during March break. His goal was to raise $2400.00 and awareness for the conditions in Attawapiskat, Ontario; a First Nation reserve on James Bay in which 1,000 of the 1,300 residents are said to be homeless. In the end Wesley raised over $5,800.00!
In recognition of his efforts, Wesley was asked to go and deliver the aid in person to the community along with other TrueNorthAid volunteers and workers. While in Attawapiskat, the Deputy Chief presented Wesley with gifts including an Eagle’s Feather to honour him and his fundraising achievements on their behalf. |
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| Bailey Reese |
Niceville, FLA |
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Bailey Reese was 7 when she founded Hero Hugs in 2004. After a hurricane hit the area where she lives, Bailey noticed people were not thanking soldiers passing out ice and water, but instead complaining about long lines and not getting enough. The soldiers had left the comforts of their homes and families to come help and should have been being thanked! Bailey gathered some friends to make thank-you cards for the soldiers and since has made it her passion to be sure the men and women who serve our country know someone is thinking of them even when we don’t like what they are doing or how they are doing it. |
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| JT Robertson |
Cuba, NY |
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JT Robertson collects cans and returnables. He then uses the deposit money from those returnables to buy tickets for less fortunate children on the Arcade and Attica Railroad for a trip on Make A Difference Day every October. When JT first started, there was a problem with boarding the train for children with disabilities – especially wheelchairs. So JT continued to collect returnables to fund the trips but also started to raise awareness of the problem. He made a video and asked for letters of support for an Extreme Train Makeover. |
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| Lexxi Saal |
New York, USA |
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At the age of eight Lexxi started a fundraiser to gather donations for the kids in foster care.
Over the years she has received wonderful donations from her supporters. “Lexxi Loves” has inspired some of her peers to join and help support. |
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| Ricky Springer |
Dexter, GA |
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Eight year old Ricky Springer is not your typical kid. On the outside he is the picture of perfect health, but on the inside his immune system wages war against the most common substance needed for life: Food. Ricky lives with an Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disorder, a distinct disease which affects the gastrointestinal track, rendering the patient unable to tolerate food protein.
In 2009 he initiated the Racing for a Cause campaign. As a dirt track go-kart racer, Ricky is using his racing platform to educate everyone he meets about these disorders, as well as raise money to support APFED (The American Partnership for Eosinophilic Disorders) in educating physicians and the general public about these disorders. |
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