Top Stories Jacksonville

Archive for the ‘Activism’ Category

Thanks to special guests Beverly Toney from Fresh Ministries and Abel Harding, Urban Jacksonville Weekly political correspondent and Times Union business columnist.

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Fresh Ministries

• building hope, changing lives
• holistic approach
• get people to do things for themselves
• Jax v Chicago
• step by step
• thriving, safe community
• beautification
• how do we market this area?
• partner with COJ
• Crime-walks with JSO
• East Jacksonville boundaries
• other associations have formed as a result
• freshministries.org
• Twitter
• Tony – Eastside is looking better
• Beaver Street Enterprise Center
• community garden
• Tony – no permit required to sell produce from a community garden
• Abel – what is Beaver Street?
• Beaver Street – incubation center for small businesses, classes, resources
• anyone able to use it
• 6 Point Community Initiative
1. economic development
2. education
3. affordable housing
4. safety
5. health
6. strengthening families
• Tony – school system is a mess
• Eastside Resource Center – 1104 E 1st Street
• Joey – relationship between Stadium District and East Jacksonville
• stadium to Springfield should be a showcase
• Tony – old buildings, no money being lent
• proud that the community has come as far as it has
• volunteer

Recommendations

Abel – Annual Tour of Historic Churches downtown (tix at the library)
Tony – Black Saturday at RAM
Joey – Designers in Toyland December Art Walk (229 Hogan)
Jonathan – Burro Bags Art Show December 12th
Beverly – Fresh Ministries Annual Christmas Party – 1104 E 1st Street

Music

Tuesday, November 24
Cafe Eleven
Mountain Goats
Final Fantasy

Wednesday, November 25
Shantytown Pub
Americans in France (Chapel Hill, NC)
Business Casualties (Duval)

Friday, November 27
TSI
Gil Mantera’s Party Dream
Sunbears

NEXT WEEK

Chad Landenberger to talk about his role at AIGA Jacksonville, Designers in Toyland art show and I’m Board IV, Jacksonville’s 4th Annual Skateboard Art Show.

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art via arimoore on flickr

A few locals designers are using their talents to help others and a beard blogger is growing a stache to help fight colon cancer. These are just a few notable items in an emerging local trend: creative people finding ways to help others. They’re illustrating that there is more than one way to give back to the community.

Brand Sprout From Greenhouse Studio

You may have noticed the Brand Sprout ad on the blog last week. Brand Sprout was a contest to award one new company a complete branding package:

We will create your identity, messaging, vision, website and overall brand framework. We’ll even host your site and support your branding initiatives for one year.

While not completely without motives (new business and PR) the idea of giving away weeks and maybe months of work is very generous. Although the contest is over, you can see who the winner is when it’s announced later today.

AIGA Jacksonville’s Designers in Toyland

AIGA is hosting its first custom toy show, Designers in Toyland, at the December Art Walk, December 2 from 5-9 pm downtown. Both AIGA members and non-members are invited to build a toy from scratch, choose an existing toy and take it to another level, or paint a blank vinyl toy — anything that makes the toy a creation unique to you. A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to The Big Fun Box.

The Big Fun Box donates thousands of goodie boxes, each year, to children who are experiencing frequent and extended stays—for any illness or injury—in pediatric hospitals across the country.

Movember With JaxBeard

Movember Jax encourages people to raise money to fight prostate cancer and improve survival rates and quality of life for young adults with cancer between the ages of 15 and 40 via the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Here’s how it works. A “Mo Bro” starts Movember (the month formerly known as November) clean shaven and naked-face. He grows a moustache all month long, and as he’s doing this, he’s gathering support from friends and family in the form of donations. This helps us get the subject of men’s health out in the open and gives us the opportunity to talk about the cancers affecting men. The moustache becomes a symbol, much like the pink ribbon is for breast cancer.

Sean Collins who organizes JaxBeard is a solid dude and you can help out by joining up. Contact Sean if it’s something you’re interested in.

We Inspire Grant Program

Similar to Brand Sprout, the We Inspire Grant Program is donating creative services too, but this time it’s going exclusively to a non-profit somewhere in the US. It’s a collaborative effort between Studio Orange Design, Subtle Technology and Tiffany Manning Photography.

Providing a yearlong partnership will enable us to develop a strategic and integrated approach to your marketing. Once a recipient is announced, a kick-off meeting will be scheduled to establish the goals and objectives of your organization. At this point, we can collectively determine what creative services will have the greatest impact on your cause.

The We Inspire team and each of the other organizations in this post are friends of the Urban Jacksonville blog. It’s quite an honor to be affiliated with people who are doing such good things in the local community. This is a trend I expect to see continue throughout the end of the year and into 2010.

If you have any other examples please share them along with links to the organization on the Urban Jacksonville Facebook page.

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Credit Metro Jacksonville: Bus Shelters Done Right

This morning on First Coast Connect at 9:00 we’ll be discussing the City Council’s decision to allow the JTA to hire an independent company to build dozens of bus shelters around town these would be paid for with print advertisements that would appear on the shelters.

Opponents of this move have argued it would lead to lawsuits and too much visual blight. However, advocates say this is a win for lower-income residents of the city who regularly ride JTA buses and have had to wait at bus stops with no shelter in rain and heat.

This is a good idea and adds to our cities competitive advantage when it comes to public transportation. Metro Jacksonville has two great articles on this topic.

While some may view the bus shelter discussion as simply an aesthetic one, it’s actually an issue that will determine the direction of our city’s economic future. A look around the country reveals that quality mass transit is one of the top urban amenities that appeals to the creative class. It is a critical element in the recruiting of highly skilled and educated workers that are essential for the new economy. Locally, mass transit happens to be one of Jacksonville’s major weaknesses.

From Bus Shelter Advertising Debate headed to City Council on Metro Jacksonville. They also take a look how how Boston successfully implemented bus shelters with advertising in the article Bus Shelters Done Right.

Here are links to articles on Jacksonville.com which detail the dissenting views on allowing a private company to build new bus shelters.

Building bus shelters with ads stirs debate through Jacksonville
Bus shelter battle heads to Jacksonville City Council

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You can now listen right now, click the play button above.

Topics

Special Guest: Jim Adams, CEO of Family Support Services talks to us about foster care in Jacksonville. One of the best shows in a while.

Foster Care
Kevin Gay – Operation New Hope
working with gateway, Hubbard House, FCCJ at prevention house

Foster Care Redesign
www.fostercareredesign.org
looking at the family as a whole picture
70 different components

foster kids have highest drop out, pregnancy, criminal justice rates
576 kids in Florida adopted out of foster care system
no children under 5 in foster care system right now

Heart Gallery
www.heartgalleryjax.org
traveling portrait exhibit now at the Landing

How to Get Involved
Project Backpack – Junior League
next 3 Saturdays at RAM (10am-4pm) – drop off backpacks (like $3 @ Target) or gift cards for older kids
Adrian Pickett doing live portraits of kids that will be given to family that adopts child

Mentoring
UNF
17-18 year olds

also accepting bikes, skateboards

ActionNews – noon show features a Heart Gallery child
Chicago award for news org. doing the most for the community

Recommendations

Jack – CW/EU TV show Saturdays @ 10pm, Sundays @ 6:30
Jonathan – some show at some time
Joey – AIGA Always Summer Poster Show Saturday
Tony – Project Backpack at RAM + Toyota Farm to Table Tour
Jim – Burrito Gallery (via his son)

Music
Wednesday September 23
Landshark Cafe
Chicken & Whiskey (Duval)
Slumpbuster (Jax Beach)

Thursday September 24
Jack Rabbits
The Queers (P-mouth, NH)
The Leftovers (Portland, ME)

Friday September 25
Jack Rabbits
Juliette Lewis (Hollywood)
The Ettes (Nashville, TN)

Edge 17
After the Bomb, Baby! (Duval)

TSI
Honey Chamber (Duval)
Shawn Lightfoot (Duval)
Karma Explosion

Saturday September 26
Cafe Eleven
Richard Buckner

Doozer’s Pub
Status Faux (Duval)
Anchor Arms (G-ville)
FFN (Palatka)

Shantytown
The Matt Kurz One (Athens, GA)
Corporate Whores (Neptune Beach)
The Snacks (Greenville, SC)

Sunday September 27
Nobby’s
Low Red Land (San Fran)
Chicken & Whiskey (Duval)

Jack Rabbits
Islands (Montreal)
RickoLus (Jax Beach)
Tuffy (Duval)

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I produced this video for a client of ours at Wingard Creative. It’s so awesome we have companies like Solar Energy Initiatives headquartered here in NE Florida.

I used iMovie 09 to put everything together. There was a bit of an issue getting .AVI files from my Flip Mino impoted into iMovie 09. To do this I used a little software called iSquint to convert the .AVI to an iMovie friendly format. Boo ya.

Solar Energy Initiatives was formed to execute on a grass roots campaign, “RENEW THE NATION”, to help redeploy a portion of the U.S. work force and focus on reducing the world’s dependence on fossil fuels by selling solar thermal and photovoltaic (PV) technologies, while building a profitable company.

Renew the Nation Press Conference » Solar Energy Initiatives, Inc. from Joey Marchy on Vimeo.

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