It’s official…I’ve moved my blog to http://www.jimgrayonline.com
I’ve transferred my feed over there…but here’s the link to the new feed…I’ll leave this post up for a few weeks to give everyone some time.
You can still follow me on Twitter , Facebook , Foursquare etc.
Gift Card Giver launches:
SUPER GIVER PARTY
Feb 7, 2010
A Super Bowl Party Benefiting Haiti Relief
The super bowl is the house party of the year. We know, you will be at a house watching the big screen with your friends, eating junk food, yelling for no reason and voting on what commercial was the funniest.
We need you, yes you, the one with the cheese dip in your lap. While you are cheering, we need you to help us collect gift cards to help with relief efforts in Haiti. Every person has an unused gift card ($8 billion annually) and you can help do something super by collecting those cards to support a great need.
Party with a purpose. Simply, have a super giver bowl and put gift cards in it instead of chips. When you’re wiping up soda spills and filling your dishwasher, you can throw the gift cards in an envelope to Gift Card Giver and you’ll have given your party even more purpose. But don’t forget to tell your friends to bring their gift cards!
SUPER STEPS
1. Tell your friends to bring gift cards to your super bowl party.
2. Put a bowl between the cheese dip and ice cubes, make people give.
3. Watch our video at halftime to share the SUPER idea.
4. Put the gift cards in an envelope: Gift Card Giver, PO Box 17628-Atlanta, GA 30316
5. Help Haiti people in great need.
And then also,
Are you hosting a Super Giver Party? Tell us about the party you’re hosting or attending, (Your name and the city where your party will be) and we’ll enter you into a drawing for a Super Give-Away! The prizes couldn’t be better! It’s super easy! Either reply to us on Twitter about it (@giftcardgiver) or leave a comment here about your party, and you’ll get your name in the hat! This is what you could win:
-Plywood Goods Messenger Bag
-Gift Card Giver T-Shirt
-Gift Card Giver Tote Bag
-A copy of The Poor Will Be Glad, by Peter Greer (President of Hope International)
-A box of DELICIOUS chocolates from Endangered Species.
Tell us about your party!!!
Here’s a great effort on the part of Healing Place Church to help the survivors who have been devasted by the earthquake in Haiti.
1. Join Churches Across the World on Monday Night in Prayer For Haiti - Together with Pastor Stovall Weems and Awakening (http://awake21.org) we are making a call for churches everywhere to pray this Monday night for Haiti. We encourage you to invite your church to pray. Open the doors of your church and ask your people to come and pray specifically for Haiti.
At Healing Place Church this Monday, January 18 at 7:00 p.m. CST, we’ll host an evening of special prayer for Haiti at our Highland Campus in Baton Rouge, LA. We’ll also stream this event live online at http://healingplacechurch.org/hpclive. We encourage you to help spread the word and join in from wherever you are.
If you’re on twitter, please use the hashtag #pray4Haiti to help spread the word.
2. Engage the Immediate Needs by Giving – There are two main ways you can give to help the relief effort in Haiti.
Give financially.
You can give online at http://healingplacechurch.org/haiti or by giving directly to our partners, Samaritan’s Purse (http://samaritanspurse.org) and Joyce Meyer Ministries (http://joycemeyer.org).
Give relief supplies.
If you’re in the Baton Rouge area, you can bring relief supplies (listed below) to:
Healing Place Church Highland Campus
19202 Highland Road in Baton Rouge.
Items will be collected now through Monday, January 18
6:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
For those outside the Baton Rouge area, you can send mail your donated items to:
Love A Child
Attn: Mike Essman- Haiti Earthquake Medical Donation
9304 Camden Field Parkway
Riverview, FL 33578-0520
We are blessed to have tremendous relationships with ministries that have a long history on the ground in Haiti as well as a wealth of experience in large-scale crisis response. It is through these partnerships that we are able to engage the need in Haiti. Serving together with these ministries in our own experiences of natural disasters and tragedies, we have learned to value their integrity and wisdom very much in these situations. That gives us great confidence that you can trust that what you give will be stewarded well to help the people of Haiti.
3. Prepare for Future Recovery and Rebuilding – These problems Haiti is facing will not go away in just a couple weeks, so we are committed to serving Haiti long-term. We are already beginning to adjust our missions plans for 2010; working in plans to send teams to Haiti to help with the recovery effort. The immediate emergency situation in Haiti doesn’t present an opportunity for us to put teams on the ground to serve. But in 60-90 days, there will be tremendous opportunity for teams to serve in Haiti. Please begin praying, and if you feel it is something God wants you to do, begin preparing to serve on a missions team in Haiti sometime in the next few months. Here’s a look at some of projects we intend to send teams for:
Construction and clean-up
Children’s ministry
Pastoral counseling
Medical care
Cooking and feeding
We have some great relationships with people who have friends and connections on the ground in Haiti. We will be connecting with them in planning our missions trips. Pastors, we want to encourage you to do the same as you plan your own missions trips in these coming months. For example, we’ll be connecting with Celebrate Jesus Haiti a group that cares for 600-1,000 orphans each day. This church is led by the mother of our friend Bill Scheer, pastor of Guts Church in Tulsa, OK (http://gutschurch.com).
It is moments like these that the body of Christ must work together to engage the need. What better way to communicate the love of our Savior than to respond with hope when people are hurting? And together, we can make a huge difference in this tragic situation.
Thank you for caring, and for putting that care into action. If you would like further information, please feel free to contact Mike Haman at mailto:mike.haman@healingplacechurch.org or 225-753-2273.
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LIST OF ITEMS NEEDED
IMPORTANT: If you’re sending large quantities of supplies, they need to be palletized and shrink-wrapped for shipping, with an inventory of items included. Personal donations of smaller quantities can be dropped off in person or mailed directly to Love A Child.
Medications:
(These items can be purchased over the counter at any local drug store)
Aspirin
Tylenol
Motrin
Children’s and adult multi-vitamin
Benadryl
Neosporin or triple antibiotic
Oral re-hydration salts
Cough medications
Medical Supplies:
(These items can be purchased over the counter at any local drug store)
Ace bandages
Alcohol pads
Band-aids
Betadine wipes and sticks
Drapes
Gauzes – any size
Gloves – all sizes, sterile/non-sterile
Gowns –surgical and patient (head and shoe covers, goggles, masks)
Pediatric supplies
Tape – all types
Thermometers
Other:
(These items can be purchased through a doctor or physicians’ office)
Zantac
Hypertension medications
Blood pressure medications
Blades – sterile only
Needles – butterfly, angio catheter
Compression stockings
Dressings – sterile and un-sterile (Coban, Tegaderm, Steri-Strip, Surgilast)
IV supplies – tubing in sterile packages only
Scalpels
Sponges – surgical only (includes X-ray detectable)
Surgical towels – cloth/paper
Sutures
Syringes
Tongue depressors
Love A Child
Attn: Mike Essman- Haiti Earthquake Medical Donation
9304 Camden Field Parkway
**UPDATE: Good point from my friend Vin Thomas:
“Another great place to give is http://compassion.com/helphaiti.
One great point made by President Bush today in his plea for support of Haiti was to send cash. While it is noble to want to send water, medical supplies, etc. It is usually best to just send cash.”
The holidays can be pretty rough for some. There’s always one relative that can get under your skin. We avoid them at any price.
“Please, don’t put me by cousin Eddie at dinner?”
We fear the holidays with impending DOOM…not really…
There are still a lot of peeps out there who are unsure about social media and have a lot of questions about what to use and what not to use. They might have as many questions as I do about if Herman Munster would use a Mac or a PC?
My goal is to help fill in the blanks for everyone. For the tech-savvy geeks and for the simple lumberjacks (and guys like Herman Munsters,too!)
