THE STORY:
A local vol­un­teer woke up one chilly morn­ing to real­ize that she needed to get into her robe and cud­dle up in it to get warm and cozy. In that moment, it dawned on her how many less for­tu­nate peo­ple never get the oppor­tu­nity to get “warm all over” when the tem­per­a­ture drops.
The vol­un­teer and her hus­band set out to change that, and came to Bluffton Self Help with the dream to gather women in the com­mu­nity together who want to give back to neigh­bors in need.

THE COLD REALITY:
For many of Bluffton Self Help’s clients dur­ing the win­ter months, keep­ing warm on a cold day can be a dif­fi­cult propo­si­tion. Often, heated liv­ing space is “iffy”, and for some, there is no per­ma­nent place to call “home”.

THE OPPORTUNITY:
The women of neigh­bor­ing plan­ta­tions will spread the word about the need for blan­kets and robes. They’ll tell their neigh­bors, and through­out Feb­ru­ary, will col­lect gen­tly used or new blan­kets and robes at a drop-off loca­tion in their neigh­bor­hood, or at BSH.

WANT TO HELP?
Begin­ning NOW through Feb­ru­ary 29^th, gather and drop off blan­kets and robes at BSH or to a Drop Off loca­tion near you.

Birdies for Char­ity is a fun way to con­tribute to your favorite char­ity while fol­low­ing the PGA TOUR pros as they play in The Heritage.

Each par­tic­i­pat­ing char­ity will receive every penny of the dona­tions of this pro­gram, plus the Her­itage Clas­sic Foun­da­tion will con­tribute an addi­tional $100,000 among the par­tic­i­pat­ing charities.

Each orga­ni­za­tion asks their sup­port­ers to pledge a small amount for each birdie made dur­ing The Her­itage. In 2011, 1,401 birdies were made by the PGA TOUR golfers. The Birdies pro­gram cel­e­brated its 12^th year in 2011 by dis­trib­ut­ing $391,944 to local non-profits, push­ing the total to around $3.2 mil­lion since it began 2000.

If you would like to make your pledge directly to the Birdies for Char­ity Web­site, then go here.

Or, you can down­load our pledge form, com­plete it, and send it to Birdies for Charity.

Either way, you can enjoy more of your game, and Bluffton Self Help wins!

Thanks for your support.

The May River The­ater group is really spread­ing the hol­i­day cheer this Christ­mas sea­son by stag­ing a spe­cial the­ater event called CHRISTMAS, A MUSICAL REVIEW.  Writ­ten and directed by Kelly Alcorn, Chris­tine Grefe, Adam Rich and Pete Zeleznik.  The admis­sion fee includes a toy col­lec­tion for Bluffton Self Help’s Hol­i­day for Hope pro­gram. Con­tinue Reading…

Thank You Super­cy­cles! Your gen­eros­ity in orga­niz­ing over a hun­dred rid­ers to bring toys to BSH today, with a police escort, was a fab­u­lous and appre­ci­ated event! In addi­tion to the 100 or so toys donated today, you also did a 50 / 50 raf­fle for us this morn­ing that raised a $1,000, and you haven’t stopped! You are still col­lect­ing dona­tions for another deliv­ery to BSH. We appre­ci­ate you so much!

From our Board Pres­i­dent Peter Brom­ley, “I know I speak for many of us there when I say how impressed and touched we were by this group.   Most all toured the build­ing and took time to ask us ques­tions and how they can help.  They were a great bunch of men and women from the area and the orga­nizer told me they already have plans to dou­ble the event next year!”

Brit­tany Shane, the WSAV TV reporter on loca­tion for the story, said, ” I was deeply touched by what hap­pened today and had “goose bumps and chills as I was film­ing the car­a­van arriv­ing with the police escort and all of you clap­ping and cheer­ing”.  A real Kodak, or should I say Fuji, moment!“
Donate directly to BSH: www.blufftonselfhelp.org

We thank our friends at Covert Air who are cur­rently spon­sor­ing a Canned Food Drive to ben­e­fit Bluffton Self Help. Covert Aire is a local busi­ness owned and oper­ated by Mike and Teresa Covert Air. Their motto has always been “Com­plete cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion is not only our goal.….its OUR busi­ness”. Con­tinue Reading…

FWDG (The Fur­ni­ture Ware­house Design Gallery) of Beau­fort, has kicked off it’s 21^st annual Coat Drive – along with a goal of col­lect­ing 4,500 jack­ets, coats and sweaters to dis­trib­ute to needy in Beau­fort County. More than 37,000 gently-used coats have been dis­trib­uted to fam­i­lies in need since the annual project began 20 years ago.

Jack­ets, coats and sweaters can be dropped off at local col­lec­tion sites through Decem­ber 31. Bluffton Self Help will then dis­trib­ute the dona­tions to fam­i­lies in need.

“In these tough eco­nomic times, there are more and more local fam­i­lies who need help, and that includes help keep­ing warm through the win­ter,” said Larry Mark, pres­i­dent of Fur­ni­ture Ware­house Design Gallery, also known as FWDG.

“Recy­cling jack­ets, coats and sweaters is good for our envi­ron­ment, but more impor­tantly, it’s good for our com­mu­nity. The econ­omy has put thou­sands of fam­i­lies in a posi­tion where a used coat or jacket can make a big dif­fer­ence in being com­fort­able this win­ter,” he said.

Dona­tions can be dropped off now through Dec. 31 at the fol­low­ing local locations:

• FWDG, Perime­ter Walk, 745 Robert Smalls Park­way, (Hwy 170), Beaufort
• Bluffton Self Help
• All Beau­fort County BB&T branch offices
• Car­olina Stam­per, 203A Carteret Street, down­town Beaufort
• Bat­tery Creek High and Hilton Head Island High

Busi­ness, civic clubs, churches and other orga­ni­za­tions often hold Coat Drive blitzes from one day to sev­eral weeks within their orga­ni­za­tion. They can des­ig­nate a cen­tral coat col­lec­tion point at their busi­ness or organization.

The Coat Drive was started 21 years ago by the Marks, long­time Low­coun­try res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers. Located at 745 Robert Smalls Park­way in Beau­fort, one mile east of the Broad River Bridge, FWDG at Perime­ter Walk is the only one-stop-shop for home fur­ni­ture and fix­tures in Beaufort.

FWDG and its own­ers have received numer­ous awards rec­og­niz­ing the busi­ness and their involve­ment in the com­mu­nity. Awards include: Beau­fort Regional Cham­ber of Com­merce Small Busi­ness of the Year, Small Busi­ness Per­son of the Year, Beau­fort Gazette’s Reader’s Choice Award for best Fur­ni­ture Store for 12 straight years, and the Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. Human­i­tar­ian Award for Business.

For addi­tional infor­ma­tion about FWDG or the Coat Drive, please call Larry Mark at 843−524−8695.

Thanks to John Rush & Asso­ciates who spon­sored a Canned Food Drive on behalf of Bluffton Self Help. Their request for non-perishable canned foods like canned corn, peas, green beens, yams, cran­berry sauce, and chicken broth was a huge hit and came just in time for the Thanks­giv­ing rush. The team also col­lected boxed mac­a­roni and cheese, stuff­ing, corn­bread mix, and instant mashed pota­toes. Frozen turkeys were included on the request sheet.
All of the food items were dropped off at Ameriprise Finan­cial in Moss Creek Shop­ping Cen­ter.
Accord­ing to Lili Cole­man, Exec­u­tive direc­tor of BSH, “We are so grate­ful for our friends at John Rush & Asso­ciates. When groups like this take it upon them­selves to orga­nize and host food dri­ves like this one, we ben­e­fit greatly. We thank them for all they have done for Bluffton Self Help.”

It’s offi­cial. Bluffton Self Help will host a regional sanc­tioned chili cookoff on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 25 at Tanger II. The call for cooks will be issued in early Decem­ber with a cut off for reg­is­tra­tion on Jan­u­ary 30.

Local chili cooks and cooks from the south­east region of the United States will com­pete for the regional title, with the win­ner pro­gress­ing to the inter­na­tional cook off held annu­ally in dif­fer­ent loca­tions around the coun­try and also be guar­an­teed a space in the Upstate Chili Cookoff held in Bel­ton, SC in April.

“What makes this cook off unique is that those in atten­dance watch the chili being pre­pared from chop­ping of the veg­eta­bles and meat to the light­ing of the stove,” said Lili Cole­man. “The chili is pre­pared for approx­i­mately three hours and the judges deter­mine the win­ner at the con­clu­sion of the cookoff.”

Once the chilies are deliv­ered to the judg­ing table the tast­ing begins!

Celebrity judges and restau­rant chefs will be selected to judge the chili entries fol­low­ing the rules and reg­u­la­tions of the ICS orga­ni­za­tion.
The ICS is the offi­cial orga­ni­za­tion that sanc­tions chili cookoffs. These events are world­wide and ben­e­fit char­i­ties or non­profit orga­ni­za­tions. All win­ners of ICS sanc­tioned cookoffs qual­ify to com­pete for cash prizes and awards at the World’s Cham­pi­onship Chili Cookoff. The ICS is the largest food con­test, fes­ti­val orga­ni­za­tion in the world. Their sole pur­pose is to pro­mote, develop and improve the prepa­ra­tion and appre­ci­a­tion of true chili and to deter­mine each year the World’s Cham­pion Chili through offi­cially sanc­tioned and reg­u­lated com­pet­i­tive cookoffs. The Inter­na­tional Chili Soci­ety is very proud to say that they sanc­tion over 200 cookoffs a year through­out the World and have helped raise over $86 mil­lion dol­lars for char­i­ties and non­profit organizations.

Watch for more information!

Pro­tect­ing your iden­tity… by part­ner­ing with com­pa­nies like Shre­dex and Savan­nah Shred­ding to destroy, lit­er­ally, tons of your con­fi­den­tial doc­u­ments … so they don’t fall into the wrong hands…

ERASING your per­sonal infor­ma­tion from HUNDREDS OF USED COMPUTERS FOR REDISTRIBUTION by Goodwill…

WSAV, Shre­dex, Savan­nah Shred­ding, Chatham County, Bluffton Self-Help and Good­will are part­ner­ing to help pro­tect you from iden­tity theft by pro­vid­ing on-site shred­ders for sen­si­tive doc­u­ments. All paper shred­ded will be recy­cled. We will also be col­lect­ing elec­tron­ics. The shred­ding is a one day event.

We’ll also be col­lect­ing dona­tions for Hol­i­day Hope to make sure needy chil­dren in our area have toys for Christmas!!

Data Destruction/Recycling Event – Bluffton, SC

When: Sat 11/12/2011
Where: Bluffton Self-Help (new loca­tion)
3900 Sheri­dan Park Cir­cle
Bluffton, SC
Just off HWY 278 in Bluffton
Time: 9a-2p

Details:  Savan­nah Shred­ding will destroy all doc­u­ments and Good­will will take com­put­ers, electronics.

40 rid­ers joined the
THE RIDE TO 39
On Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 29
Thank you for par­tic­i­pat­ing and
Thank you to all the donors
Who pro­vided bicy­cles for our clients!

IMPORTANT REMINDER

One week remains in the old loca­tion.
Novem­ber 7, Bluffton Self Help
Opens for busi­ness at
39 Sheri­dan Park Cir­cle in
Sheri­dan Park.