John Goodrich of the Glynn County Community Action Team has "retired" from the Glynn Co. CAT. John was instrumental in bringing the program to the children of Glynn County. Glynn County has mailed 72,906 books since they began the program 3 years ago. John has been a dedicated volunteer in Glynn County. We will miss you John!

Diana O'Keefe of the Greene County Community Action Team has handed off her "ferst hat" to Ann Murray and Judie Meeks. Diana was a one woman show when she brought the program to the children of Greene County in 2002. Since then Diana has helped to send over 51,400 books to children in Greene County! Diana will continue to be active with the Greene CountyCAT and we all are so thankful for all she does. Thank you Diana for your years of dedication and service to the children of Greene County!
 

Fundraising:
 
Fundraising Event: If you are planning an event for your community, please contact Sandy at sandy@ferstfoundation.org for a special event packet.
 
The Citizens of Georgia Power is a 501 c 4 organization with 43 chapters and 3200 members. Their mission statement is: Through personal touch and a caring attitude, we support our employees, their families, and our communities in time of need such that we are "A Citizen Wherever We Serve. " We have a list of chapter offices available for you to be able to make a connection with that group in your community. Please e-mail tcochran@ferstfoundation.org for the contact in your community.
 
Quarterly Reports: If your community does not use Ferst Foundation as your fiscal agent, please remember that your 2 quarter reports are due.
 
Public Relations:
Name tags are available. They are $18 each. These are great to have when you are out at events. You can have them personalized with your name or just your county name. We will be ordering name tags 8/14/09 so place your order now by e-mailing Sandy

 
Ferst Foundation is now on You Tube! That's right; post your videos from your CAT events. Anytime you hold a registration drive, fundraiser or even a CAT meeting, why not video it and post it to You Tube? Let's let everyone know what you are doing locally for the program. You can log on to the site by www.youtube.com and enter the username: info@ferstfoundation.org and password: ferst1999 to post a video. We will be monitoring this site and we will remove any videos that we feel are inappropriate. Visit You Tube now and see the videos that are already posted!
 
Be sure to check out Vista Print for some of your printing needs. They offer business cards, post cards, magnets, car door magnets, decals, letterhead and much more. A lot of these items are FREE you only have to pay shipping-the only negative would be the add-ons they encourage you to purchase at the end of your order-just click no to those offers. We use Vista Print all the time! www.vistaprint.com 
 
Registration:
If you or someone on your CAT needs access to the database, please contact me at tcochran@ferstfoundation.org for your username and password. Please remember to log into your account on the 8th of every month to view your pending children. If these children are not approved they won't be added to the database and no book will be ordered for them.
 
Back to school is the perfect time to register children in your community. Set up a table or booth at your schools to register children or just give out bookmarks. This is a perfect PR opportunity as well.

 

Beginning sometime in 2010, Dolly Parton's Imagination Library will roll out a few "soft cover" titles in the older year group category. They are working to be more compliant with the postal service as well as finding alternative ways to save money. We do not know how many titles will be affected by this change or the cost savings of changing these titles. Please feel free to e-mail Tera with your questions or concerns.
 
Website:
Have you visited our website lately? If not, check us out! Ferst Foundation for Childhood Literacy

The Getting Involved section has a lot of useful information for PR, Fundraising and Registration.