Bag Childhood Hunger Day

I wrote this press release for work on Monday about The Color Spot employees participating in Bag Childhood Hunger Day. It is a great cause and I urge you to take the pledge as well and donate to No Child Hungry.

Contact: Brooke Brookins

Phone: 678-385-2188

Email: info@colorspotink.com

The Color Spot Employees Donate Their Lunch Money

Marietta, Ga. (Nov. 1, 2011) The employees of The Color Spot, Inc. took the Share Our Strength® pledge and participated in the No Child Hungry® Campaign, Bag Childhood Hunger Day. Employees donated the cost of their lunch for the day in hopes of ending childhood hunger in America by 2015.

One in five children in America- more than 16 million- face hunger. Every dollar donated can help connect a child with up to ten healthy meals. In addition to raising $78, The Color Spot employees generated awareness on their Facebook and Twitter pages.


“I was shocked when I saw the statistics of hungry children in the U.S.,” said Brooke Brookins, Key Account Consultant. “Deciding to eat in for one day will provide a hungry child with several meals. It is a small gesture that makes a huge difference.”

About Share Our Strength
Share Our Strength®, a national nonprofit, is ending childhood hunger in America by connecting children with the nutritious food they need to lead healthy, active lives. Through its No Kid Hungry® Campaign—a national effort to end childhood hunger in America— Share Our Strength ensures children in need are enrolled in federal nutrition programs, invests in community organizations fighting hunger, teaches families how to cook healthy, affordable meals, and builds public-private partnerships to end hunger, nationally and at the state and city levels. Visit www.Strength.org to learn more.

About The Color Spot

The Color Spot, founded in 2003, specialize in vehicle wraps, trade show graphics, point of purchase/store displays, banners, signs, fine art reproductions, digital graphics and indoor/outdoor displays. The Color Spot helps brand companies, promote products, display services and create the perfect atmosphere by printing on virtually any surface. The Color Spot is focused on the community by continuously donating to a variety of charities and organizations. Visit www.colorspotink.com for more information.

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Hallow's Eve

Happy Halloween y'all! I must say I have had a festive few days celebrating the end of October. Halloween is not my favorite holiday but I do enjoy the decorations, dressing up and CANDY! I hate being scared though so I opt out of the haunted houses and scary movies.
This weekend we hosted a Halloween party at our apartment with a few of our best friends. I was Dorothy and my boyfriend was the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz and I'd have to say we were pretty cute.

Of course Ashley-Anne's Bakery (reference previous post) made an appearance at the party as well. Olivia and I baked two types of cupcakes, Frankenstein and Mummies! 

The cupcakes were a huge hit, who could resist, they are super cute! Sunday night I baked pumpkin cookies for mine and Reid's work and they were enjoyed as well!

Since we live in an apartment complex we didn't have any trick-or-treaters, so we decided to eat all of our candy and sit on our couch watching Hocus Pocus. I'd say 2011 brought a great Halloween. I hope everyone enjoyed theirs as well!

Blog Action Day 2011-Food

Blog Action Day 2011's theme is FOOD! Everyone enjoys talking about food. It basically makes the world go around. Food brings cultures together, nourishes our bodies and provide enjoyable conversation topics. Narrowing down the topic of food into one blog post was a little difficult, but after a few minutes of thinking, the decision was evident. Today I am going to educate you on MANA (Mother Administered Nutritive Aid). 

Beginning in 2009 in Matthews, North Carolina, Co-Founders Mark Moore and Bret Raymond made it their mission to provide solutions to address malnutrition, its root causes and devastating effects. They decided to distribute a Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) made of peanut butter mixed with fortified milk in an over-sized ketchup packet to Rwanda and Guatemala. RUTF helps grow the brain. The first six years of a child's life are crucial for brain growth and development. If kids do not eat, their brains starve and they will die. Because peanut butter is a high protein snack, it is the perfect snack for a growing kid. 

There are over one billion hungry people in the world. Hunger develops into chronic malnutrition and kills 1-2 million kids each year. A child diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition can be revived with three packets a day for six weeks. The total cost is less than $60 per child. Deciding to cut back on eating out a few times a month will save the life of a starving child, isn't that worth it?

MANA is a trust worthy non-profit. Their values include:

Quality – In every aspect of MANA, we will give fanatical attention to quality.

Faith – We are motivated by our belief that God loves all people, has a strong affection for those who are suffering, weak, and oppressed, and desires that we invest our lives in theirs.

Innovation – We understand that more breakthroughs are needed to end malnutrition, so we will work with experts in many disciplines to discover the next big thing.

Responsibility – We understand our role as a corporate citizen and will act responsibly in every community in which we live and work.

Sustainability – We desire to make a long term difference in the lives of millions of people. This necessitates that we are around for the long haul.

Transparency – We will share as much as possible with anyone who wants to understand how we are using resources to accomplish our mission. And we will remain open to constructive ideas that will enable us to be more effective with what has been entrusted to us.

 

If you are interested in donating to this wonderful cause, click here . They have made the process very simple in monthly recurring donations. 

For more information visit their Facebook page or website. 

I am thankful I was able to participate in Blog Action day 2011 and share this wonderful cause with you all! Enjoy reading the other participants blogs!

Hotlanta!

I am officially a resident of Atlanta! I moved here one week ago and so far I love it. I have three Georgia College roommates and we live in Vinings which is right outside of Buckhead so traffic is not an issue. We are living the post-grad life; buying the bare minimum, eating whatever we can find and for now, jobless.

My full time job at the moment is hunting a full time job. The job market is so bad right now it is very difficult to find a communications job, but it is not hopeless. For the moment I am focused on having informational meetings with different people in the industry hoping to learn more about it and what I would like to do in the future. Thus far I have met with six professionals, nine by Tuesday, in hopes of becoming a better job candidate. Each individual has been so helpful in my search and willing to help me build my network in this area. PRSA-Georgia and the Phi Mu Atlanta Alumnae Chapter have been huge helps in my job search. It is great to have these sources to rely on and I strongly encourage whoever is reading this to become part of a specialized group because they truly have your best interest in mind and want to help you.

I have had a few in person interviews and several phone interviews, but the job I interview for the job I would love to have is next week so please keep me in mind and say a prayer for me. I know the job for me and God's will will come in his time so I am learning to be patient and listen to him. For the time being I am enjoying meeting people and learning exactly what they do. I am thankful for the opportunities I have been given so far and the ability to speak with people who work at worldwide PR firms, non-profits and boutique firms.  I am slowly building my network in Atlanta and I am looking forward to finally having a career! I cannot wait to pay it forward to a young professional one day because people have been so good to me.

Entering the Unknown

After my internship at Scripps Networks Interactive ended in July, I had the opportunity to work for another month (paid this time) as a contractor in the same department, Corporate Communications. After a little decision and a lot of praying, I decided to come back for the month of August and fill this temporary position. This week begins my last week and in this short time I have learned so much. I served as Corp Comm Coordinator and assistant to our SVP. Life lessons and professional skills is what I acquired from this position. I dealt with people a lot and worked on my professional communication and organizational skills. There were good days and bad, as with any job, and I learned how to deal with them and move on. Everyone in my department is such a joy to work with and they have helped me continue to grow in my professional career. On Friday I will officially leave Knoxville, TN and move on to find a permeant job. Not having one lined up has made me very anxious because I am a big planner and like to anticipate what will happen next. I know this is another opportunity for me to learn about myself and rely on God. I know the plans he has for me are perfect in his timing and I need to let go and let him direct my life. I am very thankful for this temping opportunity because I not only learned more for my future career, I met/lived with the most amazing family. Because one month leases are so difficult to find, I found a family who let me live with them for free. Not knowing them made it a little strange at first but it could not have been a more perfect situation. They are a loving and strong Christian family that have taught me a lot about generosity and sacrifice. I was so blessed to have met them and thankful for their hospitality. It is so funny how everything happens for a reason. Now the job waiting begins. Hopefully not for too long!

Ashley Anne's Bakery

After being "closed" for the past two months, this weekend Ashley Anne's Bakery was back in business. Ashley Anne's is the name of the bakery my college roommate/friend hope to one day have, and we will. We are proposing in the next 5-10 years we will open this bakery and be wildly successful doing exactly what we love. 


Baking is so much fun, especially when you have a great partner. Our dream began when we would bake cupcakes once a week in our small apartment, also known as Club 65. We have now graduated to slightly more advanced desserts, which you can find below. 


We do not claim these recipes to be our own originals, however, we do believe that we make them even more delicious than before. We are not advanced nor are we perfect bakers. We are not afraid to make a mess and enjoy laughing while creating these edible master pieces. 


This past weekend we baked three desserts; Funfetti Cake Pops, Snickerdoodle Surprise Cookies and Pecan Pie Pretzels. We got a little carried away baking them all at once, but we are great multi-taskers! Note: this took place at 11 p.m. We are considering a midnight bakery ;)


Funfetti Cake Pops:
This was my first, Olivia's second, attempt at making cake pops. Well, they are a lot easier said than done. These little treats are hard to master. 


Ingredients:
1 Box cake mix (additional ingredients needed)
1 container of icing
Meltable chocolate
Sprinkles/candy
Cake pop sticks
Styrofoam (optional)


First, bake a box cake of any flavor you wish. Let the cake cool and then crumble it in a mixing bowl. Next, add 1/2 a container of icing and mix it with your hands until you can form a ball of dough that sticks together. Roll out small balls-this is the key. We made our balls too large so they did not hold to the pop sticks. Make them about a two bite size. Dip your sticks in the melted chocolate and stick in the ball. Allow time to harden then roll the ball in melted chocolate and top with your favorite sprinkle/candy. We did not have styrofoam to hold our cake pops up so we had to make them upside down. Considering our lack of experience, I think they turned out beautifully! And they were DELICIOUS! 

Snickerdoodle Surprise Cookies:

This recipe was taken from The Baker Chick Blog and they wonderful. We followed her recipe exactly and wouldn't change a thing. It is posted below!

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup pure vegetable shortening

1 3/4 cups sugar, plus more if needed

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, plus more if needed

2 large eggs

48 soft caramel candies or Rolos unwrapped

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter, shortening, and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs, and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine.

In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Use a small (1 1/4-ounce) ice-cream scoop to form balls of the dough. Break the ball into two and place the caramel into the middle. Form one large ball and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are set in center and begin to crack (they will not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after 5 minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about 5 minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

Pecan Pie Pretzels:

These are a simple and delicious bite size snack. 

Ingredients:

Bag of square pretzels

Rolos or caramel squares

Pecans (crumbled or whole) 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. Lay out your pretzels and place a Rolo or caramel on top. Heat for 3 minutes and remove. Stick pecan on top. Refrigerate and serve. These also make great gifts in individual baggies!

Believe

You are your number one fan so never doubt yourself.

Instead, believe you can and you will accomplish great things.