Playhouse on the Square

Corporate giving story for The Commercial Appeal

June 26, 2009

Playhouse on the Square is presenting a sold-out performance of the hit musical "Rent" Saturday as a benefit for Hope House, the center for children and families affected by the HIV-AIDS virus.

The night is an event with the show, food and wine, and a silent auction of $15,000 worth of merchandise. Combined with the $12,000 in tickets sold, it's a substantial fundraiser for the organization whose annual budget is $1 million.

"We want to make sure we're being good corporate citizens in the community," said Playhouse associate producer Michael Detroit.

Hope House was looking for a companion piece for its Art for Hope fundraiser, which is held in November, when it called on Playhouse ... (read more)

Travel time estimates don't allow for children

"Because I Said So" column for The Commercial Appeal

June 25, 2009

The most difficult part of parenthood for me to reckon with isn't the cost of children, or the mess. It's not any loss of freedom to move about on a Saturday night, or even the actual labor of childbirth.

Wait, no, my wife is making a gesture from across the room that I'm egregiously underestimating that last point.

Nevertheless, the hardest aspect for me with a family this size, is that at least once a year I strap these kids into a van and drive them cross country.

That's right, it's family vacation time ... (read more)

Passion for books - and each other - keeps the pages of life turning for Meslers

Profile feature in the "Making it Work" series for The Commercial Appeal

June 18, 2009

"I live among bookshelves," says Corey Mesler, co-owner, along with wife, Cheryl, of Burke's Book Store.

He speaks not just of his home where, admittedly, knickknacks have no place to roost, but of the little bookstore in Cooper-Young, as inviting as any living room and brimming with literature, history, memoirs and fables.

The Meslers have led a bookish life together since meeting at Burke's Book Store's former location at Poplar and Evergreen ... (read more)

Medtronic thinks globally

Corporate Giving story for The Commercial Appeal

June 12, 2009

Medtronic's Global Volunteer Project, which was launched this month, involves its employees in 40 projects in 14 countries.

The company has about 1,400 employees in Memphis, where volunteer efforts in June included working with Dorothy's Place, one of two Alzheimer's Day Services centers, and a drive to benefit Mid-South Food Bank.

In addition to collecting canned goods at various Medtronic campuses, employees worked at sorting and stocking the food bank's pantry.

Today, Medtronic volunteers in Memphis will be sorting donated clothing and participating in sports and activities at Youth Villages.

"This program encourages employees to carry out the sixth tenet of the Medtronic mission, which is to maintain good citizenship as a company," said Victor Rocha, company spokesman in Memphis ... (read more)

Sometimes it's best not to consider pools, kids

"Because I Said So" column for The Commercial Appeal

June 11, 2009

The long days of summer, with no routine, no morning lunch boxes or after-school homework, need to be defined, beg to be shaken up. My wife is a teacher, on vacation for the next couple of months, and I work from home, and the easiest, cheapest way to break up the day is by sending the kids outside for the afternoon.

The heat of a Memphis summer, however, needs to be mitigated. It should be tempered and handled carefully with oven mitts and a welder's apron, or a fistful of Popsicles and a face full of hose water.

Nothing says summertime in Memphis like stuffing a family of six into a $30 inflatable kiddie pool in the backyard. We look like the last sunburned survivors of a shipwreck in our lifeboat adrift upon mud and sod. But mostly mud ... (read more)

Sedgwick CMS

Corporate Giving story for The Commercial Appeal

June 5, 2009

The 6,400 employees of Sedgwick CMS provide claims administration, medical management and risk consulting in all 50 states and Canada. At corporate headquarters in Memphis, the 500 employees lead a grass-roots community support effort.

"As an office, we get to vote on which organizations we give to," said Kelli Reece, project coordinator for Sedgwick.

For 2009, the company's beneficiary is the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Mid-South, the organization that grants wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions. In November, for instance, Make-A-Wish gave 15-year-old Jasmine Johnson, a musician who has suffered from AIDS since she was 2, a $6,500 shopping spree to buy recording equipment so she could make music for her father to listen to when she is gone ... (read more)

How big should our family be?

Feature story for Memphis Parent magazine

June 2009

In the June issue of Memphis Parent, focusing on fathers, Father's Day and men's issues, I wrote a feature story on vasectomies as a birth control option. The piece answers questions men have about the procedure, the permanence, this option versus others, fears and includes personal stories.

The decision to have children is one of the most sacred and important decisions two people can make. The thinking process should include the consideration of your lives as adults and whether a child or children will fit into that life. You have to question your flexibility and willingness to turn that currently childless life of yours upside down. Finances, education, coming decades of hands-on care, indeed the whole future should be re-imagined with children in it. The responsibility of another life is an awesome one.

The decision to not have children, or any more children, is equally important. Are two children enough? Three? Is one all we have the time and love for? Determining the number of people you envision in your family is Step One in deciding to become voluntarily sterile. How to get that way is a whole other discussion ... (read more)

Casualties of recent layoffs stay optimistic

Lifestyle feature for The Commercial Appeal

June 2, 2009

Black-and-white photos from the Great Depression show hordes of weary and bedraggled men jumping trains to travel from city to city in search of work, hoping to make enough money to take care of their families back home. They're a bleak reminder of a frightening time in our nation's history.

A scene out of the great recession of 2008 and beyond might find bathrobed men and women on sofas, riding the cyber rails of their laptops, hunting and pecking their way through job listings.

And where, early last century, stories of misery and an emasculating sense of shame were passed around like a nickel pint of rye, these days the economic victims are more likely to be bolstered by those in similar situations, sharing stories of hope and possibilities with each other via instant messaging, texts and e-mail; a fraternity of the furloughed, a sorority of severance ... (read more)