Murfreesboro, TN — Special Kids held its 13th Annual Golf Classic presented by Nissan and Kidz Zone Play Systems on Thursday at Indian Hills Golf course in Murfreesboro and raised $36,074.38 for the local nonprofit.

For the first year in the tournament’s history, the event offered both a morning and an afternoon session and grew to having over 240participants. Through the funds raised from registration fees and event sponsors, the event will help Special Kids to provide therapy and nursing services to over 200 in middle Tennessee.

“We were tremendously blessed by the beautiful day and wonderful turn out at Indian Hills yesterday,” says, Stephanie Folkmann, Director of Development at Special Kids. “It never would have been possible without all the help of our sponsors and wonderful volunteers. Thank you to Nissan and Kidz Zone for presenting this event for us. It sure was a great way to help our effort towards expansion.”

The morning session began at 7 a.m. with breakfast provided by Stones River Grill and started with Special Kids’ co-founder, Carrie Goodwin, expressing her appreciation for the golfers’ support of the organization. The morning tournament concluded with the Lorance Team in first place including, Marshall Lorance, Tony Switzer, BJ Bobo, and Jonathan Williamson.

Afternoon golfers enjoyed lunch provided by Slick Pig BBQ and teed off at 1 p.m. after Patrick and Amanda Nelson, whose son receives services at Special Kids, shared their family’s story and appreciation for the help they have received. The afternoon first place team was Jasey’s Team consisting of Jason Miller, Eric Smith Roger Farmer and Bradley Farmer.

Sponsors for the event included presenting sponsors Nissan and Kidz Zone Play Systems, ace sponsors OleSouth Properties and Tri-Star Title & Escrow, albatross sponsor Murfreesboro Magazine, grand slam sponsor Yates Services, eagle sponsor Aetna, birdie sponsors Newk’s Express Café, Ascend Federal Credit Union, Huddleston-Steele Engineering, and Mills Family Pharmacy, and several hole sponsors.

Special Kids is a Christian, nonprofit organization located in Murfreesboro, TN, that provides therapeutic rehabilitation and professional nursing services to children with special needs. Since 1998, Special Kids has served over 2,200 families from 11 counties in middle Tennessee. For more information on Special Kids, please visit specialkidstn.com or call 615.893.4892.

Awards recognize corporate citizenship and community impact

Local United Way corporate partners Publix Supermarkets, Bank of America and Wells Fargo were recently recognized in Nashville as Summit Award recipients during a dinner meeting at the United Way Community Leaders Conference. Publix Super Markets was highlighted for their success in community impact and philanthropic engagement, Bank of America for community impact and volunteer engagement and Wells Fargo for volunteer engagement.

Publix Super Markets raised $45.6 million nationwide for United Way in 2011 and its associates volunteered a total of 900,000 hours. Publix also promotes United Way on 220 million grocery bags and within its customer newsletters. The company ranks number one on the Corporate Social Responsibility Index in addition to being among Fortune's "Most Admired Companies" for 17 years.

Bank of America and its employees raised more than $35 million nationwide for United Way in 2011 and volunteered more than 1.5 million hours. The bank also supported free income tax assistance resulting in more than 530,000 completed tax returns and $800 million in total refunds.

Wells Fargo is United Way's top national campaign raising more than $56 million annually, and team members volunteered more than 1.5 million hours in 2011. The company also offers a unique Volunteer Leave Program that provides fully paid volunteer leave for up to four months for team members to work on a significant project impacting a non-profit organization or school. In 2011, Wells Fargo awarded volunteer leave to more than 26 team members representing more than 32.5 months of paid leave. Overall, the company gave $213.5 million to non-profits.

United Way also awarded Dr. Thomas F. Frist, Jr. with the inaugural United Way Lifetime Achievement Award. The United Way Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes an individual whose contributions, sustained over a lifetime, have helped create opportunities for a better life for all and advance the common good in communities around the world.

Dr. Frist established the United Way Alexis de Tocqueville Society in 1981. The society helps celebrate and deepen relationships between United Way and community leaders. During its 30-year existence, the Alexis de Tocqueville Society has grown from ten communities recruited by Frist before 1984, to over 500 communities across the United States and around the world. Since 1981, Alexis de Tocqueville Society members have invested an average of about $600 million annually.  Society members include Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet and more than 25,000 other families around the world.

“The impact of these Global Corporate Leaders as well as Dr. Frist is incredible,” commented Brian D. Hercules, President and CEO of the local United Way. “Without each of their efforts, United Way would not be what it is today. Our local community is greatly strengthened by their dedication and hard work."

Other Summit Award recipients included Deloitte, General Motors, Microsoft Corporation, and Illinois Tool Works. Proctor & Gamble received the Spirit of America award for philanthropy, volunteer efforts and community impact.

The Spirit of America and Summit Awards program, celebrating its 25th year, is United Way's highest national honor for a corporation, recognizing United Way Global Corporate Leaders with the most comprehensive commitments to strengthening communities.

For more information about United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties, please visit www.uwrutherford.org.

Signature event set for July 14.

The United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties will host its third annual Red, White, and Blues event on July 14, 2012, at the home of Ronnie and Donna Barrett.

Red, White, and Blues is United Way’s signature fundraising event. This outdoors, casual dinner is reminiscent of the southern coastal areas and associated with the 4th of July holiday. Five Senses Restaurant is set to cater this year's event.

Sponsorship opportunities are available through May 15. Click here to review sponsorship options. Tickets are $75 each. For more information, please contact Meagan Flippin at (615) 893-7303.

Murfreesboro, TN - Special Kids has been selected as a finalist in the State Farm Youth Advisory Board Cause An Effect program and has a chance to win $25,000.  Over 3,000 applications were submitted to the board that narrowed the list to 100 finalists.  The winners will be chosen by the community via voting on Facebook.  The top 40 organizations will each be awarded $25,000 to apply towards their cause. Any Facebook user can vote up to 10 times per day from now until May 17.

http://www.facebook.com/statefarm/app_376288832400015?app_data=Camp-Ability

Diners can enjoy Toot’s chicken wings Tuesday, May 8 and donate to pay expenses for 30 Rutherford County student athletes competing in the state Special Olympics.

Toot’s will collect funds all day but Sheriff Robert Arnold and school resource officers will collect donations from diners from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Broad Street restaurant during the “Wings and Rings” fund-raiser. Donations will pay for the Tennessee Special Olympics May 18-19 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

SRO Dick Peach will entertain by singing Elvis tunes on request. Other SROs will join him in singing “Happy Birthday” to customers celebrating the special day at the restaurant.

“They definitely have good food and fun at Toot’s,” Peach said.

Co-chair Lou Paschall of Area 16 Special Olympics said the competition gives students with disabilities a chance to compete in athletic events.

Co-chair John Harris said Rutherford County students at the state games will compete in swimming, power lifting, track and field and bocce.

“Winning and losing is not the purpose of Special Olympics,” Harris said. “The purpose is to participate and be involved.”

Board member Mack Barnett said the Wings and Rings event gives athletes a chance to compete.

“You can see the joy on their faces,” Barnett said. “Winning is not everything. It’s the idea participants do something they enjoy doing. You can’t put a price on that.”

Paschall said “Wings and Rings” is a great opportunity for people who can’t be involved in Special Olympics to support the athletes financially. She suggested people might want to eat out that night for a “girls’ night out” or teachers and their families.

“We can’t say enough about Toot’s and their support financially,” Paschall said. “They get people out there.”

Toot’s owner Wade Hays said Special Olympics is a cause that fits within the restaurant’s wheelhouse of helping youth in the community.

“We feel this is a sponsorship that we can wrap our arms around, along with the sheriff’s SROs, to benefit our local Special Olympics organization,” Hays said. “We are very proud and honored to partner with the sheriff’s office in these great events. Even if you cannot dine with us on Tuesday, please take a minute and stop by Toot’s on Broad Street and make a donation to Special Olympics. Any amount is greatly appreciated.”

SRO Capt. Barry Hendrixson thanked Hays and the Toot’s staff for sponsoring Wings and Rings.

“The SRO Division would not be able to help as much if it were not for Toot’s and their dedication to Rutherford County,” Hendrixson said. “SROs see these students on a daily basis and to be able to help them participate in the Special Olympics makes all the effort worthwhile.”

Time is running out to register for Alive Hospice’s live butterfly release in Murfreesboro on June 2. RSVP by May 4 for this special event, which will honor the lives of cherished friends and family and raise funding for Alive Hospice.

Butterflies may be ordered for $30 each online at www.alivehospice.org or by calling 615-327-1085.

This event will take place on Saturday, June 2 at 10 a.m. at Alive Hospice’s Murfreesboro Office, 1639 Medical Center Parkway (across from Middle Tennessee Medical Center). Participants will gather in the garden patio to release butterflies. Proceeds will help Alive Hospice, a nonprofit organization, provide hospice care and grief support services for all who need them in Middle Tennessee.

For more information, call 615-327-1085 or visit www.alivehospice.org.

Alive Hospice’s Mission: We provide loving care to people with life-threatening illnesses, support to their families and service to the community in a spirit of enriching lives.

Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee is committed to helping the unemployed get back to work. It’s why we’ve chosen to celebrate Goodwill Week by hosting more than a dozen job fairs, educational fairs, classes and workshops at our 18 Career Solutions Centers across middle and west Tennessee.

Goodwill Career Solutions in Murfreesboro will host a job fair on Thursday, May 10 from 1 p.m. until 3 p.m. A representative from Express Personnel will be at the job fair taking applications and interviewing candidates for the several employers they work with, so dress for success. Job candidates are encouraged to bring resumes, photo ID, Social Security card or birth certificate.

Job Fair
When:
Thursday, May 10, 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.
Where:
Career Solutions
710 Memorial Blvd. Suite 210
Murfreesboro

We will kick-off the festivities on Monday, May 7, by hosting a huge job fair at our main Career Solutions Center here in Nashville. More than 30 employers will be on site. The four-hour job fair will get underway at 10 a.m., but we’re expecting hundreds of job seekers, so there could be a line outside before the job fair gets underway.

Job Fair Featuring 30+ Employers
When:
Monday, May 7 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Where:
Career Solutions
937 Herman Street
Nashville

For a complete list of events taking place all across middle and west Tennessee, visit www.giveit2goodwill.org.

About Goodwill Week
Since 1951, Goodwill agencies across the United States and Canada have marked the first full week of May as Goodwill Industries Week, a commemoration that celebrates the organization’s mission of enhancing the dignity and quality of life of individuals, families and communities by eliminating challenges to finding employment and providing opportunities through job placement and training programs. Goodwill Industries Week is a time to raise public awareness about the service Goodwill provides to help people with disabilities and disadvantages reach their fullest potential through the power of work.

About Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee, Inc.
For more than 55 years Goodwill Industries of Middle Tennessee has provided job training and job placement free of charge to people with disabilities or other barriers to employment through the sale of donated items.  Goodwill has served 3,150 people in middle and west Tennessee since January, 2012 and placed 794 in jobs. For more information about Goodwill’s Career Solutions, retail stores, and Donation Express Centers, please visit www.giveit2goodwill.org or call 1-800-545-9231.

Murfreesboro, TN – The Stanley Cup Playoff bound Predators awarded checks to Middle Tennessee non-profit agencies on Friday, April 20 at the Bridgestone Arena.  The Child Advocacy Center was a recipient of a 2012 Predators grant in the amount of $3,000.

The Predators presented checks totaling $350,000 to local Middle Tennessee non-profit agencies.  This was the largest one time grant allocation in team history.  In the Predators 14 year history they have award a total of over $3 million in grants.

Executive Director Sharon De Boer stated, “The Nashville Predators are making Middle Tennessee proud by winning games and advancing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  Every year the Predators give back to our community that supports them by making contributions to local non-profit agencies.  We are very blessed this year that the Child Advocacy Center is one of the agencies that the Predators is supporting.”

The Child Advocacy Center has a huge storage garage that contains items such as toys, books, and stuffed animals that have been generously donated by our community.  Operation In As Much volunteers from local churches cleaned and organized the storage garage during the United Way Days of Action.  The Predator’s funding will be utilized to build storage racks to better organize the donations.

The Child Advocacy Center is a nonprofit agency that provides services to child abuse victims.  In the last 12 years, the Child Protective Investigative Team, which consists of the Child Advocacy Center, the Department of Children’s Services, law enforcement, mental health counselors, and the District Attorney’s Office, have worked together to investigate and prosecute over 7,500 child abuse, child sexual abuse, and drug endangered children cases in Rutherford and Cannon Counties.

To report suspected child abuse call the Department of Children's Services at 1-877-237-0004.  To learn more about how you can get involved contact the Child Advocacy Center at (615) 867-9000.

Second annual race to benefit United Way

The United Way of Rutherford and Cannon Counties and The Avenue Murfreesboro have partnered to present the second annual Run United 5K to be held on Saturday, May 19, 2012, at 7:00 AM at The Avenue property located at 2615 Medical Center Parkway in Murfreesboro.

Participants may walk, jog or run the race course, which will be throughout The Avenue property.

Registration is available at www.rabbitroadracing.com. Early registration is $30 and ends May 1. Early registrants are guaranteed an event shirt. Registration after May 1 is $35 and participants will not receive an event shirt. Day-of registration is $40 and does not include an event shirt.

Check-in for registered participants is available 10 AM - 4 PM on Friday, May 18 at The Avenue management offices and 5:30 AM -6:45 AM on the day of the race.

Volunteers are needed and those interested in volunteering at the event should contact Kristen Hampton at (615) 893-7303.

There’s no denying that Rutherford County got swept up in Hunger Games mania this year. Murfreesboro placed on Amazon.com’s list of the top 20 cities most obsessed with the dystopian thriller, and the county has been buzzing about Katniss and her bow and arrow for months.

In Rutherford County, it started with an initiative called One Book, a program created by local literacy non-profit Read To Succeed aimed at promoting literacy in our community. One Book is a collaborative project of Read To Succeed, Barnes & Noble, Linebaugh Library System, and United Way, created to challenge readers in Rutherford County to join in reading the same book.

In case you’ve missed this year’s One Book madness, Read To Succeed’s choice The Hunger Games tells the story of a totalitarian state called Panem that has risen from the postwar ashes of North America. Each year, a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 to 18 are chosen from each Panem district to compete in the Hunger Games, a gladiatorial competition in which only one teen can survive. This battle is televised and played throughout all of Panem, forcing its residents to watch with a mix of grisly fascination and tyrannical obligation.

It’s a bloody, at times gruesome, tale wrought with messages about our culture’s fascination with reality television, our desensitization to violence and the danger of an all-too-powerful government. And from its intended young-adult audience to their parents and grandparents, we can’t stop reading.

As the fifth year of this event comes to a close, One Book's committee invites the community to formally submit their opinions—whether you loved or loathed The Hunger Games— in a survey and to keep reading this summer with One Book's 2012 supplemental reading list.

Visit readtosucceed.org/onebook.htm to fill out a quick survey before July 1st and you will be entered to win a gift card to JoZoara’s coffee shop in Murfreesboro.

Read on to find out what One Book thought about choosing this year instead of The Hunger Games and for a list of what to read next if you loved the young adult novel.

Suggested Summer Reading (including titles considered for 2012’s One Book)

• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer - A boy embarks on a New York City treasure hunt, following clues from his father, killed in the World Trade Center attacks.
• People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - The incredible journey of a 15th-century Hebrew manuscript is discovered through a series of microscopic clues; this fictional take on a real-life event makes for spellbinding novel.
• Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes - The brutality of war is detailed in this extraordinary novel by a decorated Vietnam veteran. Matterhorn is considered by many critics as one of the best accounts of the Vietnam war to date.
• The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman--The lives of a group of misfit reporters and editors of an English language newspaper in Rome is portrayed in their lovable imperfection.
• Kindred by Octavia Butler - A young woman is transported from her life in modern-day California to the antebellum South in this magical novel.
• Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann - A look at the intertwined lives of New Yorkers in the 1970s, connected through a tightrope walker at the top floor of the World Trade Center.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee--An American classic told by young Scout Finch who, along with her brother Jem, are caught up in the racially charged events in the Deep South in the 1930s.

NONFICTION

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (the runner-up choice of this year's One Book): A young African-American mother of five who died in 1951 has likely saved your life. Her cells, harvested without her consent, started a medical revolution and multimillion-dollar industry, yet her family can’t afford health insurance.
• A Pearl in the Storm by Tori Murden McClure (MTSU's Community Summer Read for 2012): The first woman to row alone across an ocean
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand: A World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption
• Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall: A modern-day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them together

If You Loved The Hunger Games, try:

• Camp Half-Blood Series- Rick Riordan, Follows the story of Perseus “Percy” Jackson as he discovers his true heritage as a descendant of Greek gods and fights to save his friends and family on Mount Olympus.
• The Chronicles of Narnia- C.S. Lewis, Fantasy series following the stories of the Pevensie children and their friends, who enter the magical land of Narnia through portals in their own homes and backyards, and their adventures with the lion Aslan, the King of Narnia.
• Ender’s Game- Orson Scott Card, A gifted young boy, Ender, may be the earth’s only hope in a global war against an alien army.
• The Inheritance Cycle Series- Christopher Paolini, A fantasy series in which a teenage boy, Eragon, and his dragon, must lead a rebellion to overthrow a wicked lord.
• The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkien, Fantasy series in which Frodo Baggins, a hobbit, must band with his fellowship of hobbits, elves, dwarves, men, and wizards in order to destroy the Ring of Power created by the evil Lord Sauron.
• A Wrinkle in Time Series- Madeleine L’Engle, Science-fiction series based on the Murry family whose gifted children seek to find their father, a government agent, who has mysteriously disappeared into a fourth dimension.