As our community continues to face a tight economy and shrinking budgets, the Daily Record has established this feature that each week reports the efforts of local nonprofit organizations and the individuals and businesses that support them.
Bailey Publishing & Communications invites all members of the local nonprofit community to email news, announcements and success stories to [email protected] or to [email protected].
We also encourage our readers to become more aware of the needs of these worthy organizations as they continue to provide valuable services with reduced resources.
University musicians unite for Brass Extravaganza
Brass Extravaganza will be held at 6 p.m. Oct. 21 at Church of the Good Shepherd at 1100 Stockton St. in Riverside. The performance is free and open to the public and includes the University of North Florida Brass Ensemble, University of Florida Brass Ensemble and brass masterworks from the Renaissance, Baroque and contemporary eras.
The next concert, “Make We Joy: Songs of the Season,” will be 6 p.m. Dec. 2 at the same location and feature the Jacksonville University Singers.
Cabana Club residents celebrate new dog park
Five pet organizations celebrated the grand opening of the Cabana Club apartments’ dog park Oct. 6. The organizations were First Coast No More Homeless Pets, Baymeadows Animal Hospital, Fetch Pet Walking, Bark Busters Home Dog Training and pet masseuse Doryan Cawyer.
Residents and their dogs were joined by guests to visit vendors, receive goodie bags and participate in other activities.
Cabana Club, at 8680 Baymeadows Road E. near the Interstate 295 East Beltway, is the first apartment community constructed by developer Perimeter Realty to provide a dog park as an amenity for residents – and the first of its properties to set no weight or size restrictions on pets.
Nominees sought for charity painting makeover
Performance Painting Inc., a residential and commercial painter, announces its annual Gift of Color event, a $7,500 painting makeover for a charity. The Jacksonville-based painting contractor will select one recipient in Northeast Florida based on recommendations from the community to receive free paint, labor and materials.
From Nov. 5-18, nominations can be submitted at performance-painting.com/nominate.
Based on the submitted story, the community will vote online from Nov. 26-Dec. 9.
The Performance Painting team will choose the winner from among the top three vote recipients.
The winner will be announced Dec. 22.
The public can access the contest Web pages on Nov. 1. Last year’s winner was First Coast No More Homeless pets.
Jaguars Foundation boosts awareness of veterans’ services
The Jaguars Foundation is providing a $20,000 grant to the Nonprofit Center of Northeast Florida to create an online platform to identify and map all of the veterans’ services in Northeast Florida.
Rena Coughlin, CEO of the Nonprofit Center, says the recently created online Nonprofit LINK platform — TheNonprofitLink.org — will be used to map and catalog services to:
• Identify communitywide re-integration services to veterans returning from service
• Provide government agencies a tool for locating and contacting resources for veterans
• Provide nonprofits with a map of services and interrelated programs that will improve efficiency in service delivery and coordination of care
• Provide nonprofits with the foundational information they need to work together to gather information, promote collective action and describe impact
• Provide the philanthropic community with a comprehensive picture of veterans’ needs and services, and a method of contacting the providers.
For more information about the mapping initiative, contact Rena Coughlin at (904) 390-3222 or [email protected].
Costco gives $41,000 to pediatric programs
Associates at Costco presented Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals of Jacksonville and a Miracle child, Trent, with a check for more than $41,000 for the 2012 Balloon Icon Campaign, with the funds raised to assist the pediatric programs at Shands Jacksonville and Wolfson Children’s Hospital. Costco’s associates
and members made donations during their campaign during May.
Blood Alliance seeks donors immediately
The Blood Alliance has a critical need for the universal donor, O-Negative, and is low on O-Positive, A-Negative and B-Positive.
Donors can visit igiveblood.com to find the nearest donor center or blood drive.
Also, for every person who donates one pint of blood at any donor center, The Blood Alliance will donate $1 to The Donna Foundation to fund local breast cancer research during October.
Additionally, The Blood Alliance will donate $5 for every 50 online accumulated ePoints donated back by donors this month in the Hero Rewards Store in eDonor at igiveblood.com.
To make an appointment to donate, visit igiveblood.com, use the “iDon8” iPhone and Droid apps or call (888) 998-2243.