General Mills Charlotte Feeding Dreams Community Champions

CHARLOTTE, NC - I want to take this opportunity to congratulate Kelly Hutchinson, Founder of R.E.F.O.R.M. for receiving the first place award, at the 2009 General Mills Feeding Dreams Community Champions Award Luncheon, held at the Marriott Executive Park Hotel, on Wednesday December 2, 2009. Valarie Brooks, Executive Board Member with the Girl Talk Foundation received the $1,000 award for her organization and on behalf of The Dove's Nest, I received the $2,000 award to be applied to their Capital Campaign Expansion Fund.

Susan L. Taylor, Feeding Dreams Celebrity Spokeswoman, was the guest speaker and presented the Community Champions with their respective awards. It was an amazing, emotional and gratifying day. The experience felt so surreal, but in the reality of it all, we left there with a renewed spirit and determination to continue making positive contributions to our community.

Among others included on the program line-up, Beatrice Thompson, News & Public Affairs Director with WBAV-FM 101.9 was the Emcee. Debra Bryant, one of our local singers provided the musical selection. Rev. Thelma Gordon from Liberty Hill A.M.E. Zion Church delivered the invocation. Kimberley Bow Sundy, General Mills, Inc. Multicultural Marketing, PR & Community Relations Manager gave the Feeding Dreams Program Overview. Lafayette Jones, President/CEO of SMSi-Urban Call Marketing, Inc. introduced Susan L. Taylor. Modesty Dunbar Thompson, SMSi Lead Ambassador for the Charlotte Market made the prize presentations. Sandra Miller Jones, Founding Chair of SMSi gave the closing remarks.

Please feel free to click on the following link and visit the photo gallery from this day's festivities.
http://feedingdreams.com/charlotte/?cat=4

Edifying The Community

By Kym Gordon Moore

We are saturated every day with painstaking, horrendous stories in the news, online, through our mobile devices and newspapers that are impossible to run away from. Literally, we expect to get our daily intake of bad news so much, until when a good story rolls around about an advocate doing something positive and edifying in the community, we are somehow thrown off course.

Earlier this year, Favorite Things for a CAUSE decided to highlight ordinary people doing extraordinary things within the communities of our surrounding area. We came across many volunteers who do so much, yet prefer to remain anonymous, at least for the time being. Those of us who are blessed to be recognized in one way or another, feel undeserving of such publicized recognition. Yet, when an opportunity comes along, where your community leaders scour through mounds of well deserving candidates and decides to recognize you, you find your spirit flushed with humility, because your contributions are done from the heart and out of love. Somehow you prefer to remain in the shadows, but when we look at the bad news that often dominates our sources of communication, we welcome some good news in the midst of the storm.

I have the honor of being in good company with two extraordinary women who were nominated to represent the General Mills Feeding Dreams Community Champions program in Charlotte, North Carolina. Throughout the past few months, you read and learned about The Dove’s Nest, the organization I represented for Feeding Dreams. Please feel free to revisit our previous blog posts in case you missed those articles. Although we have a couple of weeks before finding out how the results from the online voting will rank the award placement for each of our organizations, we have enjoyed this ride. Kelly, Valarie and I are committed to getting the much-needed support for the organizations we represent, since all of them rely on donations from generous people in the community.

So to all of you who are doing something in your community beyond the call of duty, we salute you and thank you for being a participator and not a spectator. Can you possibly imagine the type of world we would live in if everyone did “one” positive thing each day to make the world a better place?

Be inspired…Then be an inspiration!

“He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.” - Proverbs 22:9 (RSV)

Straight Talk with Bea Thompson from WBAV-FM Interviews Feeding Dreams Champions

Bea Thompson, host of Straight Talk on WBAV-FM 101.9 in Charlotte, NC interviewed the General Mills Feeding Dreams Community Champions from Charlotte, NC. The show aired on Sunday August 23, 2009. Bea gave each recipient, Kelly Hutchinson (R.E.F.O.R.M.), Valarie Brooks (Charlotte Girl Talk Foundation) and Kym Gordon Moore (The Dove's Nest) an opportunity to talk about the organizations they are representing for this community service award. General Mills Lead Ambassador for Charlotte, Modesty Dunbar Thompson, was also on hand to explain the Feeding Dreams program to listeners and petitioned that everyone go to http://www.feedingdreams.com/ to vote for the champion of their choice.




Kelly Hutchinson
"R.E.F.O.R.M."

Valarie R. Brooks
"Girl Talk Foundation"







Kym Gordon Moore
"The Dove's Nest"

Modesty Dunbar Thompson

Lead Ambassador
Charlotte, North Carolina

Kym Gordon Moore & The Dove's Nest Need Your Vote!!!

I was recently chosen as one of General Mills’ Feeding Dreams Community Champions in Charlotte, North Carolina. I am honored and humbled to be among some amazing and very outstanding Community Champions chosen in the Charlotte, Birmingham, Memphis and Norfolk areas. However, on behalf of The Dove’s Nest, a subsidiary of The Charlotte Rescue Mission, I am seeking your “vote” that will determine the total amount of the monetary donation this organization will receive from General Mills. If you are not familiar with The Dove’s Nest, it is a women-specific recovery program that provides a loving, highly-structured Christian environment to help women understand and deal with the core issues of their alcohol and/or drug addiction.

In essence, here’s how the General Mills Feeding Dreams Community Champion voting procedure works:- Voting is in progress. There is NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. To vote, log onto http://www.feedingdreams.com/ and follow the online instructions for voting. Voting ends at 11:59 PM Eastern Time on November 6, 2009. Limit 1 vote per person per day. You do not have to live in Charlotte in order to vote for Kym & The Dove's Nest. (Additional conditions can be found on the “Voting Rules” page)

Each charity will receive a donation from General Mills, but how much depends on how many votes we receive. In the Charlotte area there are three Community Champion recipients representing their chosen charity. As noted, I am representing The Dove’s Nest. Monetary donations will be awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd Place charities, based on who gets the most votes. To help you further understand how important your vote means, I am currently working with The Dove’s Nest to contribute to their Capital Campaign Fund for an expansion facility scheduled to break ground next year. This facility will increase from the current 12-bed facility to a 90-bed facility, to accommodate a growing waiting list of those women in desperate need for their services. This is why the 1st Place Award is so important to The Dove’s Nest and me.

Have you ever personally experienced homelessness, hunger, hopelessness or helplessness? Were you ever the victim of an addiction, abuse or monumental adversity? If you haven’t, let’s hope that you never will. Nevertheless, as our journey in life progresses, we all will eventually deal with some type of monumental adversity, whether it’s spiritual, physical, mental or emotional. For that reason, as the Feeding Dreams Community Champion, I am currently coordinating a fundraiser scheduled for September 19, 2009 to donate the proceeds to the capital campaign project for The Dove’s Nest. If you would like to contribute to this Capital Campaign Fundraiser or if you are interested in attending the “Diversities of Gifts for The Dove’s Nest Fundraiser", please feel free to send me an email at diversitiesofgifts@kymgmoore.com. Your generous gift will bless so many women in need.

I would like to thank you in advance for your vote, support, donations and prayers. Please feel free to forward and share this newsletter or link (http://www.feedingdreams.com/) with those on your email list and ask them to vote for Kym and The Dove’s Nest. May God continue to bless and keep you.

Peace & Blessings Always,
Kym Gordon Moore
Author of "Diversities of Gifts: Same Spirit"