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This weekend, more than 1,200 cyclists converged on Charlotte for 24 Hours of Booty. For 24 hours, cyclists rode a nearly three mile loop around the Myers Park neighborhood in a sign of unity against all types of cancer. This annual event raises money for cancer research and survivorship. This year, participants raised more than $1 million!

Addison Whitney’s own Verbal Branding Coordinator Jenna Wise took part in the ride as part of Team Gita. Volunteerism is a large part of the Addison Whitney culture so seven members of our team, along with a few spouses, signed up to help out.

Some people may think of volunteering as something you’re giving an organization, but I’m always amazed at how much I get back from volunteering a few hours of my time. This event was incredibly inspiring. The race began as cancer survivors rode off after an emotional send-off. And then an army of cyclists, some riding in memory of those they’d lost to cancer, and others simply devoted to helping others took off – all 1,200 of them.

This event isn’t about how many laps you’ll ride, it’s about why you ride. The best part of my night was then a father and daughter came over to chat. The young girl proudly told me she was riding for her mom who was a survivor. That’s why you ride.

Addison Whitney recently attended a mobile food packing event hosted by Harrison United Methodist Church in Ballantyne for starving children in Haiti, the Philippines and more than 60 countries around the world. In partnership with Samaritans International and the “Feed My Starving Children” organization, the “Million Meal Mission” food packing event supports children in impoverished living conditions through nutritional support. This was a community-wide event for local businesses, civic organizations and churches with a goal of having 1,700 volunteers pack 350,000 (of the 1 million) meals in 3 days.

FMSC has developed a food mixture that is easy and safe to transport. Preparation only requires boiling water and it is culturally acceptable all over the world. With the input of scientists from major food companies, FMSC developed MannaPack™, a formula consisting of rice, soy, vitamins, minerals, dehydrated vegetables and chicken flavoring.

In an assembly-line fashion, volunteers measure the ingredients and package the meals in small pouches. The formula was designed to save the lives of severely malnourished and starving children but the ingredients also improve the health, growth and physical well-being of children who are no longer in immediate danger of starvation. A single bag of food provides meals for six children.

Result:
5,000 plus volunteers and businesses around Charlotte and Union County packed 1,019,304 meals during the mobile packing events at Mineral Springs UMC, Harrison UMC and Oasis Shrine. These meals will provide enough food for 2,793 poverty stricken children for one full year!

Please visit the Feed My Starving Children website for information on how you can help!

We’ve talked a lot about how brands are trying to add “Green” to their corporate color palette, sometimes with real, valuable initiatives and sometimes with just words. (Green: Who Can Claim It? and Greenwashing) So in honor of this Earth Day, the 40th Anniversary actually, we’d like put some of those brands to the test to “verdify” how green they really are.

Last month, SunChips introduced the world’s first fully-compostable chip bag. The new bags, made of plant-based materials, should fully decompose in 14 weeks (under typical hot composting conditions). A few weeks later, Snyder’s of Hanover announced it too would be using sustainable packaging (on its organic line of pretzels).

I don’t have a compost pile, much less the perfectly mixed 1-2-2-2-1 “hot” compost that SunChips recommends, but I do find the random scrap of trash in my yard after trash day. Would the bags eventually decompose in my yard or on the side of the road? We plan to find out.

For our Earth Day experiment, we have staked one of these composting bags to the ground to simulate errant trash. We will photograph our progress and share the results on the blog.

As a Charlotte resident and pseudo Carolina Panther’s fan, it’s basically required by Mecklenburg County law as an excuse to drink to watch their games on Sunday afternoons (well that is if you can’t get into a good marathon of America’s Next Top Model). Recently though, I’ve noticed that many players’ wardrobes have added a certain splash of color to their usual blue and black palette: pink. These “Pink Panthers”, as they have been trademarked, have been sporting everything from pink wrist bands to pink towels to even pink gloves. What makes the average 250 lb beefy staple of an athlete accessorize with the world’s most feminine color? They, like many other athletes across the U.S., have been showing their support for Breast Cancer Awareness. Continue Reading »