Posts Tagged ‘Snacks’
Abbott Champions for Kids – My Donation #AbbottCFK #CBias #ChampionsforKids
If you are a regular reader here, you will know that I am working with Champions For Kids to make kids lives better in my area. At Christmas time, I worked with them to create a stocking full of Disney products. Now, I am working with them and Abbott Nutrition to help those who don’t have enough foods.
The charity I choose to donate a Snack Pack to was the Catholic Charities here in Chicago. The food pantries in the southwest suburbs of Chicago serve approximately 2,800 people a month (and this is 2010 – 2011 statistic. I can guarantee that it is much worse now.) The supper programs that Catholic Charities serve gave away more than 9,000 hot meals in the southwest suburbs. The Catholic Charities summer lunch program provided 282,000 meals to children that summer. Since the economy tanked, the need for this food pantry didn’t double – it tripled! It just makes me ill that there are people in my own community that are food poor.
Here is my shop for this campaign and what we were able to buy and donate to Catholic Charities:
As you can see, we were able to put together a pretty good assortment of snacks to donate. Catholic Charities was also very grateful for our donation (Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take any pictures of them. They just allowed me take a picture of their food pantry). I just wish I could have done more. What are you doing for your community?
This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias
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Walgreen’s Grand Opening In Chicago #chiwalgreens #cbias
Sometimes I love my job. Last night was one of those nights! I was invited to the grand opening of the brand new Walgreen’s store on the corner of State and Randolph. WOW! is all I can say. Why? Well, here’s a few pictures of my experience there:
I was impressed (and a little jealous that my Walgreens isn’t this cool). It is nice to see that the store was trying to deliver both healthy and fresh items to their customers. I really wish more stores would go that route. Granted, they still had some processed meals for those who wanted them. However, they saw what their customers wanted and took their lead. I can definitely see people popping in here for lunch (the workers) and grocery shopping (local residents). For every main product, they had several choices — milk, snacks, even spaghetti! Their prices were in line with what I’d expect to pay (well, except for the $1999 cognac. I’m pretty sure I’m not paying that much). The virtual bartender was beyond awesome. There was just so many new and crazy things in there. My pictures definitely show how awesome it was.
Walgreens really made itself a one stop shop no matter what your reason being in the store. I don’t even live in the city, and I want to go back there! I mean where else can you go and get a prescription filled, eat some sushi, enjoy a wine tasting, get your nails done, and get a flu shot?
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Top 10 Reasons Why You Need To Attend The Brands & Bloggers Summit!
I went to the most amazing conference last weekend. It was called Brands & Bloggers Summit. Now, you know that I’ve been to many conferences and events. Instead of rehashing the events of this weekend (because there are a ton of posts already out with what we learned. You can also see a lot of what happened on Twitter using the hashtag #bbsummit11.) However, if you are wondering if you should come next year, I’ve got the list:
1. The people. Yes, it was mostly women, so we also know how to take care of one another. One blogger tweeted that they wanted a Diet Coke. If you can believe it, another blogger brought her one. :) Another blogger needed some aspirin and some was given to her. Now, I can honestly say I’ve never been at a conference where I’ve seen such big hearts. Oh yes, we also all took turns holding the babies (who have to say were seen and not heard. And they were cute.)
2. Affordable. Since it was one day, a lot of people drove in Saturday. Some women even drove home Saturday night. It is much more affordable to get a room for one night. (For me, it was a 30 minute drive, so I went home late Saturday night). The conference itself was $100 (I think. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong on that). That include breakfast, lunch, and two snacks. I could have easily spent $100 on food in downtown Chicago myself on a Saturday. :) It also helps that we have 2 airports for those flying in.
3. Wifi and power cords. I can’t tell you how many conferences I’ve been to where the Wifi doesn’t work or there are 3 outlets in the entire room and hundreds of bloggers. MJ (the awesome lady who put this on) is a blogger herself, so she knew we’d need this stuff!
4. Breaks for networking. I’ve never been to a conference where there was actual time scheduled into the day, so we could all network. That’s what this is all about — making connections and learning new things. In our networking time, I found out that one of the women at my table (who I’d never met before), actually lives 5 minutes from my house. Now, how crazy is that? If that network time wasn’t there, I may have missed ever talking to her. I also found that that another wonderful woman at our table had read my interview in the newspaper (it was a couple of years ago), and she’s read my site ever since. I can’t tell you how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel.
5. Organization. We all had QR codes on our badges. Also, the back of the badge was our agenda for the day. (Again, I’ve never seen that done before). At all times, you knew what was next and how long it would take. Everything pretty much ran on time.
6. It was great for brands also. Our information was put in for a grand prize. All we had to do was visit each booth and get a sticker. I thought this was brilliant, so that we visited each booth (which I would have done regardless, but not everybody did). The brands there also were a great fit with the moms there. I found products that I would have never even seen before.
7. Miss Lori. Not only did we get to hear her perform for us, she also gave an awesome speech (which I’ll be blogging about this week).
8. No egos. The speakers hung with us during the conference and even after. I’ve been to many of a conference where the speakers weren’t good enough to hang with the rest of us lowly bloggers nor would they talk to us either. (I do have to add that the conferences I’ve been at with John Chow and Chris Brogan that they have never acted like that even with their A list status.)
9. The after party rocked. We got to go to the John Hancock Observatory. I’ve never been there, so it was pretty awesome. It was also great to network with the other bloggers I didn’t get a chance to during the conference itself.
10. This was the best conference I’ve ever attended hands down. I’ve been to BlogHer, and it was even better than that. Many times, the complaint I have with conferences is that I’m not a beginning blogger. I’ve been doing this longer than some of the speakers at other conferences. I’ll be honest — nothing is more annoying that knowing more than speaker (and I’m not trying to be rude about that. You know what you know. However, I don’t like paying hundreds of dollars to learn what I already know.) I learned something from each of the speakers at the Brands & Bloggers Summit!
I highly, highly, highly recommend heading out to the Brands & Bloggers Summit next year. It is definitely worth and hope to see you there!
Disclosure: I did receive a complimentary ticket to this years event. However, all opinions are mine.
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