For our December Helping Hands event, AW chose to sponsor the Christmas Village Toy Store at the request of one of our visual designers. It is a suggestion that many AW employees embraced, as the excitement of children at Christmas far outweighs our own as adults.

The inspiration came in 2006 for The Christmas Village Toy Store, a collaborative effort among several area churches that is designed to empower and develop at-risk urban communities in Charlotte. The store itself preserves and promotes joy and dignity at Christmas by engaging a free market system, allowing shoppers to pay a discounted price for desired items rather than be forced to accept “charity.”

Both those who donate toys or volunteer their time and shoppers who purchase toys contribute to store profits that are reinvested into the local community through educational grants and scholarships. Because of this, even the shoppers at the Toy Store are “paying it forward” into their own communities.

Addison Whitney was able to donate several boxes and bags full of toys for children ranging in age from infant to teenager. There were dolls, mp3 players, blocks, books, bath accessories and much more. In addition to donating toys, several employees, along with their friends or spouses, volunteered their time to helping the Toy Store prepare and run the shopping events. We were represented as toy pricers and parking lot attendants.

We would like to say thank you to Warehouse 242 and the other Charlotte-area churches who are part of the Christmas Village Toy Store for allowing us the opportunity to give to such an amazing organization. We look forward to being part of the initiative in the future, whether as individuals or as a company.

Sarah is a Charlotte-area junior who has been a Girl Scout for ten years.

She is now in the final stage of earning her Gold Award.

Much like the Eagle Award is to the Boy Scouts of America, the Gold Award is the highest achievement within the Girl Scouts of the USA. Only about 5% of eligible Scouts successfully earn the prestigious award. The Scout must complete 30 hours of leadership work, 40 hours of career exploration, and the 4Bs Challenge during which the scout identifies key needs in her community. After those steps have been taken, she must complete a service project. This service project must extend beyond GSUSA and provide a lasting benefit. It requires a minimum of 65 hours of work.

Sarah says that the homelessness crisis in Charlotte has been a passion of hers for many years, primarily due to her mother’s involvement with the Urban Ministry Center for almost half of Sarah’s life. Because of this, it was an easy decision for Sarah to determine her Gold Award project, as she has grown up working with homeless people.

For her project, called “A Fresh Start,” she is compiling 85 laundry baskets full of basic household items, including dish detergent, washcloths, hangers and sponges, to be donated to the upcoming residents of Charlotte’s newly constructed Moore Place, a housing facility built by the Urban Ministry Center. Moore Place will be Charlotte’s first permanent supportive home built to give a roof to chronically homeless men and women. Sarah’s aim is to provide these baskets as a house warming gift and starter pack.

As a Helping Hands event for November, Addison Whitney collected enough goods to fill two laundry baskets with the household items. These items will benefit two new residents of Moore Place and will make a dramatic impact in getting these new residents settled in their new homes.

Sarah plans to help the residents move in and hopes to continue working with them long after their first bottle of laundry detergent runs out.

If you’d like to put together a basket for Sarah’s project, please visit her website.
You can read more about Moore Place here.

Breast cancer has the pink ribbon, heart disease has the red ribbon and prostate cancer has…the mustache? In effort to raise awareness—and money—for the fight against prostate cancer, men around the world will grow mustaches throughout the month of November Movember.

The Movember (sometimes referred to as No Shave November) rules are as follows: start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a mustache (Mo’s, in Australia) for the entire month. According to the Movember website, the mustache is the ribbon for men’s health. Participants can raise awareness and funds for cancers that affect men by sacrificing their faces.

Started by a group of friends in 2003 in Melbourne, Australia, the movement has evolved and expanded to become a world-wide effort that raises millions of dollars for organizations such as Livestrong and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.

New York Yankee Nick Swisher is growing one, even the Flip Camera is sporting a ‘stache. No word on Tom Selleck, although suffice it to say he serves as inspiration to “Mo Bros” everywhere.

While Movember generates a lot of buzz and is certainly a fun way to raise awareness for men’s health, it’s tough to predict if the mustache will ever achieve the recognition level of the pink ribbon. For now, all I can do is hope to spot a Yosemite Sam-esque mustache sometime this month.

Part of Addison Whitney culture includes active support of philanthropic endeavors. Breast cancer is an illness that has affected all of us in some way, and we are part of a much larger initiative dedicated to finding a cure.

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we here at AW made donations to BCC Rally and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a gift, in return for our donations, we each received a 7-inch hot pink ribbon to be displayed on our desks, cubes or doors. Excitingly, we collected enough money to receive 35 bows. They went up on Friday, October 1, the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

To coincide with day one, we encouraged everyone to wear pink to the office and help to Paint AW Pink. Friday was definitely a pink day as the bows glowed brightly throughout the office, and many of us showed off our pink shirts and dresses.



The bows stayed up through October, but we will always be part of the fight for a cure.