Exchange Club focuses on improving lives of children

Corporate Giving story for The Commercial Appeal

January 30, 2009

The mission of The Exchange Club Family Center is to break the cycle of child abuse and neglect by replacing violent behavior with effective parenting skills.

The club's executive director, Barbara King, oversees 30 staff members in more than 20 programs, which helped more than 5,000 families in the area last year.

The Exchange Club's focus is on domestic violence programs, counseling and mediation. In 2007, Memphis police received more than 60,000 911 emergency calls for domestic-abuse situations.

"There is no other agency like this in the city," says King of The Exchange Club ... (read more)

Donors offer guidelines for sharing

Corporate Giving story for The Commercial Appeal

January 23, 2009

Some highly successful Memphis business people met Thursday at the Salvation Army headquarters to talk about how they make decisions to donate their money and time to charitable organizations.

On the panel were Society of Entrepreneur members Dick Barnhart, retired CEO of Barnhart Crane and Rigging; Mike Bruns, president of Comtrak Logistics; Charles Ewing, president and CEO of Ewing Moving Service Inc.; and Bernice "Buzzy" Hussey, owner of Babcock Gifts.

In the audience of more than 30 were representatives of some of this city's most giving organizations, including the Church Health Center, Junior League, Memphis Leadership Foundation and AGAPE ... (read more)

Any way you slice it, dad just can't cut it

"Because I Said So" column for The Commercial Appeal

January 22, 2009

In an effort to save some cash in this economic recession, I've recently begun keeping my 2-year-old daughter, Genevieve, at home two days a week instead of sending her to daycare. So far it's going well.

The time together gives us a chance to bond, to watch "Dora," to argue over whether a ham-and-cheese sandwich should be cut into rectangles or triangles.

And to nap, while she's making my sandwich ... (read more)

Teaming up for youngsters

Corporate Giving story for The Commercial Appeal

January 16, 2009

While the Memphis Grizzlies may have their struggles on the court lately, they have handily won over some Memphians in need and the people working to help them.

In addition to a toy drive benefiting the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association Toy Store over the holidays, the canned-food drive for the Memphis Food Bank, and more than $21 million given to local organizations since its inception, the Memphis Grizzlies Charitable Foundation is helping programs to serve Memphis youth.

The foundation's Team Up program supports 35 organizations that are part of a Memphis mentoring partnership ... (read more)

The Perfect Meal

Story for edible Memphis magazine

Winter 2009

The essence of tradition can be found as much in smell, taste and muscle memory as it can in any written history. At the age of 13, amid learning of algebra and girls, I was taught my family's recipe for ravioli.

The Zanone family has been making ravioli from scratch since further back than anyone recalls. However, we know that around the late 1930s, Charles Francis and Rosalie Cerisola Zanone were making the dish for family in their tiny home in north Memphis. They made small batches for special occasions because the work was labor-intensive and refrigeration was poor.

In the late 1960s, my great-grandparents Charlie and Catherine Zanone, along with their daughter and her husband, Jean and Bill Hollahan, opened Zanone's Restaurant in Frayser, selling ravioli, both hot and frozen, by the pound for a take-out meal ...

Custom cabinet shop honored for hiring, training disabled employee

Corporate Giving story for The Commercial Appeal

January 9, 2009

At Worx of Wood, a high-end custom cabinet and millwork shop in Cordova, men with earplugs cut and hammer among splintered wood, pre-stained doors and unassembled mantelpieces; it's a possibly dangerous landscape for even the most alert carpenter.

But Gene Roberson, who is deaf and developmentally challenged, moves through it with the facility of an old pro.

Roberson has worked for owner Ron Morrison and his partners for three years, sweeping sawdust, cleaning restrooms, catching ripped boards off the saw and, occasionally, assembling drawers ... (read more)

Dad fails to impress with video game skill

"Because I Said So" column for The Commercial Appeal

January 8, 2009

In an effort to impress and connect with my children, I recently sat down to play a video game with them. We don't have the Xbox or the Wii or Nintendo or whatever it is the kids are playing these days. We're bad parents, forcing books and basic cable on our offspring. Or, if we're lucky, farming them out to their 21st century friends for a sleepover and endless night of gaming.

The game that we played was a Christmas gift and is a single joystick that plugs directly into the television. It's a Spider-Man game, and I have claimed the high score for myself ... (read more)

Lausanne teacher moves to inspire kids' exercise habits for a lifetime

Health & Fitness story for The Commercial Appeal

January 8, 2009

While most kids were getting virtual workouts in living rooms across the city via their Wii video games, the first-graders at Lausanne Collegiate School were taking a figurative walk to Washington.

Starting in September, Leslie Brahm's first-grade physical-education students walked and ran one day per week to accumulate the number of miles required to make it to the nation's capital. They also helped log collective miles toward their goal by walking after school with their parents ... (read more)

Weighty win: Hospital helps churches build healthier congregations

Corporate giving story for The Commercial Appeal

January 2, 2009

Baptist Memorial Health Care has three objectives: preach, teach and heal.

These themes are stressed throughout the organization, but nowhere more clearly than in the 20 to 30 community health fairs Baptist supports every year.

Since health fairs are often the only chance for people with no health insurance to see a doctor, churches in the area contact BMHC about hosting the events for their communities ... (read more)

Jan. 1 prods us to ponder changes for ourselves, those dearest to us

Lifestyle story for The Commercial Appeal

January 1, 2009

Almost 427 years ago, Pope Gregory XIII set Jan. 1 as the beginning of our 365-day year when he signed off on the papal bull that gave us the Gregorian calendar.

The first of January can be a fresh start, a grownup do-over. It can be the clean slate on which resolutions are written, the clean plate off which black-eyed peas are eaten.

Father Tom Condon, pastor at St. Peter's Catholic Church Downtown, says, "The holidays are times of heightened awareness of blessings or things we might need to change." Many people see a change in themselves as individuals as the first step in making the world better, Condon says ... (read more)