WEB EXCLUSIVE After the long holiday weekend of eating lavishly with family and friends and buying a plethora of sale items for yourself and/or for those on your Christmas list, take a day to give back to the community. Giving Tuesday is celebrated the Tuesday after Thanksgiving throughout the world. It’s a day where people come together to “show kindness and generosity by giving their voices, time, money, goods and more to support communities and causes.”
There are an abundance of nonprofits in Raleigh and throughout the Triangle and the state that make it their mission to help support people in need every day. This Giving Tuesday, do your part by contributing to these nonprofits and giving back to the communtiy with the resources you’re so fortunate to have. Below, we look back on some nonprofits that we’ve featured in our magazine; click the links to read more about their missions and go to their websites to donate.
It’s never easy to take the leap from a corporate career to one focused on a higher purpose, but Melinda Taylor realized she could use the skills that made her successful in sales to help local women thrive.
Born and raised in Hickory, Taylor lived all over North Carolina before settling in Raleigh, where she founded BLOOMHERE, a space for empowering women. The nonprofit, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, provides a safe place to live and the space and resources for women who are survivors of abuse, addiction, prostitution and trafficking to heal.
Though Taylor, who serves as the director of BLOOMHERE, is new to the nonprofit world, she has years of experience in business and in working with women to help them feel better about themselves.
Taylor started her career working at a Clinique counter, where she says she received training that set her up for success, eventually becoming one of the top ten sales leaders in the country. Taylor then worked for a multi-million-dollar haircare company, building teams, traveling 90 percent of the time, setting more sales records and doing exactly what she thought she wanted to do: “wearing high heels and suits,” she says with a laugh, and doing it all without a college education.
Following a period of healing from a personal trauma, Taylor says she began thinking about women who couldn’t afford what she could, both luxuries like manicures and yoga classes, but also ways to heal and care for oneself that weren’t accessible to every woman. Taylor says she knew she loved to give back and wanted to find a way to do more of it. So, she gave up her hectic travel schedule, sold her home in Five Points, cashed out her 401K and set her sights on starting a nonprofit that would give women a place to lay their heads, heal, learn, feel safe and realize that they could change their lives for the better.
“Everyone has a story, and we don’t always know what’s going on,” Taylor says of what guides her vision for BLOOMHERE. “But we listen to others with compassion and encourage others to pursue their dreams.”
Taylor put her sales and business operations experience to work securing investors and she was able to rent a house for her nonprofit in August of last year. At the Bloom home in Raleigh, women survivors commit to a free, two-year stay. They experience recovery, including therapy and medical care, substance abuse rehab and physical health and wellness practice. They’re given employment and individual enhancement plans and skills training. Eventually, they can obtain leadership positions within the program, where they work to empower other women in need. After two years, the residents graduate, armed with the skills and means to be successful in the outside world.
“BLOOMHERE is helping women to heal from their past with dignity,” Taylor says. “I am continually so humbled by the process and found a gift of love and understanding and compassion. I thought living my purpose would be so easy, and it’s not. Having run a $25 million-dollar company doesn’t even compete with what I’m doing today.”
Looking to the future, Taylor says she’s working on a plan to buy more homes to assist, advocate for and empower women.
“Give a woman a bed, somewhere to sleep, and they will thrive,” Taylor says.
WEB EXCLUSIVE For 31 years, the Foundation of Hope has been hosting Walk for Hope, one of the nonprofit’s biggests annual fundraisers, in an effort to raise money towards better understanding mental illness and promoting scientific research aimed at discovering the causes and potential cures for the likes of depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, schizophrenia and anorexia. The foundation, which was founded in 1984 by Thad and Alice Eure of the Angus Barn, held their first Walk for Hope in 1989 after their son Thad Eure, Jr., who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, unfortunately passed away. Almost 200 people participated, raising about $20,000.
This year, due to COVID, the 32nd annual Thad and Alice Eure Walk for Hope will take place as a drive-thru at the Angus Barn on Sunday, October 11, or as a virtual walk for those who don’t feel comfortable participating in the event in person. “While we can’t walk all together in person, we’re so excited to capture the heart and soul of our flagship event,” read a post on Walk for Hope’s Instagram page. “It’s more important than ever to support mental illness research right here in our own community.”
The family-friendly drive-thru event will include live music from local musicians, swag like t-shirts and armbands, boxed lunch to-go from Angus Barn and the chance to win fun prizes, all while staying safely in your car. Take pictures or videos at the event and tag Walk for Hope on social media using the hashtag #WalkforHope to be entered in the prize drawings. To minimize traffic issues on the day of the drive-thru, the foundation is staggering car arrival times by last name. Check your time slot online here.
The Walk for Hope virtual walk/run will also take place on October 11, but participants can choose what time they’ll walk, where and how far they’ll go; they’ll also get a t-shirt and an armband for registering. If you can’t participate in either the drive-thru or virtual walk, you can make a donation online at event.racereach.com/walk-for-hope/donate.
100 percent of the money raised by participants in Foundation of Hope’s annual Walk for Hope directly funds local mental illness research at the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Psychiatry. Since the nonprofit was founded, they’ve awarded 157 scientific research grants totaling more than $6.6 million and given more than $570,000 to 42 mental health initiatives in North Carolina.
WEB EXCLUSIVE Many of us are feeling isolated and lonely right now but there’s one thing that always brings a smile: flowers. For The Flower Shuttle nonprofit’s volunteers, brightening someone’s day with a beautiful bouquet is a pleasure they get to enjoy each week, but their services have been so popular in recent months, they’re running out of vases.
Founded by former Raleigh resident Kathy Reece over a decade ago, The Flower Shuttle recycles flowers that would have been thrown away after weddings, funerals and other events, and delivers them to sick, poor or disabled residents all over the community.
“For some people, it’s the first bouquet that they’ve ever gotten in their life. That’s pretty touching,” says Katherine McVey, the nonprofit’s former president. “We kind of take it for granted, just because we’re affluent and we can afford them. But for these people, I think it makes them feel really special.”
Reece was inspired to start The Flower Shuttle after reading a story in Oprah Magazine in 2006 about a woman in New York who, after seeing just how many flowers were thrown away after events, started a foundation to recycle those flowers and give them to people who needed some cheer.
Realizing just how much of an impact a single bouquet can make, Reece started a similar program in Raleigh, out of her kitchen, until Raleigh Moravian Church agreed to support The Flower Shuttle as a community outreach project, donating $700 in seed money to start the nonprofit. The church continues to serve as headquarters where volunteers meet and create floral arrangements each week, every Tuesday at 10 a.m., to sort, prep and arrange blooms in bud vases and mugs (also donated) from the donations of flowers picked up the same morning or the day before. Volunteers then deliver colorful bouquets to 21 locations across Raleigh, including the Healing Place of Wake County, Sunnybrook, Triangle Family Services and WakeMed.
This month, The Flower Shuttle reached a spectacular milestone by delivering their 200,000th floral arrangement. During the coronavirus pandemic, shuttle volunteers have been gathering in teams in garages, porches and decks—while masked and staying socially distant—to continue their mission of caring and connecting with some of our area’s most vulnerable populations. They currently have ten teams that pick up from 11 donor organizations and deliver flowers to 25 recipient organizations.
“We have received many stories this summer of these flowers bringing joy to not only residents of these facilities, but also to staff members who continue to be such heroes during this pandemic,” says Rena Hatcher, who serves on The Flower Shuttle Administrative Team.
Because of the pandemic, however, The Flower Shuttle is not getting vases returned to them like they normally do, so the group is seeking donations of small, bud and medium vases without writing or logos. Vases can be delivered at any time to The Flower Shuttle’s shed located at the back of Raleigh Moravian Church at 1816 Ridge Road. They ask that vase donations be put in the bin to the left of the shed.
Activate Good’s pop-up space models what a permanent HQ for the Raleigh nonprofit could look like.
In 2004, Amber Smith and her friend, Heather Leah, set out on a two-and-a-half month long, cross-country journey in search of ways to make a difference. The pair helped build houses, served hot food to the hungry and worked in women’s shelters in more than 20 states before returning home to North Carolina with a mission to encourage others to perform those same acts of kindness in their own neighborhoods.
“One thing we learned on our journey was that people inherently want to help others in their communities,” Smith says. “They just don’t always know how to go about getting connected.”
So, the next year, Smith and Leah founded ME3, later renamed Activate Good, a nonprofit community that recruits and connects individuals, groups and companies through its website to volunteer opportunities with community partners all around the Triangle. (Leah is no longer affiliated with the nonprofit).
Last month, after more than a decade of success mobilizing volunteers to help charitable causes in Raleigh and neighboring communities, Smith opened Activate Good’s first brick-and-mortar project, The Good Hub POP UP, in an office on Oberlin Road. The goal of the pop-up is to showcase how a permanent space will help Activate Good further its work towards closing the gap between those who need help and those who want to help.
Raleigh-based Anthony Property Group donated the pop-up location and Smith says she hopes it will give people an idea of what a Good Hub headquarters will offer the community: Space where locals can strategize to do good together and for neighbors to unite in their desire to make a difference.
“It will be a gateway to hundreds of volunteer needs in our region, and a place where those who want to do good can find a way to serve,” Smith says.
Smith, who grew up in a philanthropic home, says parents often want to be more involved in community outreach but don’t always know how to include young children. Speaking to the notion that volunteerism should be encouraged to begin at an early age, The Good Hub works to help families with children find age-appropriate ways to be involved, matching volunteers with opportunities based on skills, schedules, age and interest. Finally, there will be a physical, rather than virtual, place where those who want to do good can be matched with those in need.
The Good Hub POP UP offers the Raleigh community the chance to pilot a few core features that the future permanent location will incorporate: a learning zone, where those who’d like to volunteer can learn about local causes; a service zone, where visitors of all ages can practice service projects onsite and a volunteer connections lounge, where visitors can gather; and speak with staff members from The Good Hub to learn about ways to get involved.
A key component to the future permanent location will be a rental program, where volunteers can borrow tools they may need to complete a service mission, ensuring that cost for potentially expensive tools isn’t a barrier for those who want to help.
“Volunteerism is an important facet of civic and community life and an indicator of health of the overall community,” Smith says. “If The Good Hub excels at our ambitions for locals to build relationships based upon a common goal of showing love and goodness to those less fortunate, then our communities will only continue to flourish and thrive.”
The Good Hub POP UP is located at 702 Oberlin Road, on the 4th floor, and will be open through April. Learn more at activategood.org/thegoodhub.
