Fish Fry update

The fish fry effort is growing. Several board members and other interested in teh success of the progam are pitching in. Here's what going on at this time.

We're finalizing the details on the inventory for the event.
Great work John, on exploring the fish sales. Sharon, Robert, Leroy, Beverly, Lyn and George for making plans to help out! Thanks to Inez and her sisters for loaning us their recipes for cakes, and time in prep work for the event.

I've submitted a grant application to Sam's and hope to hear from them on what they can do to help out with the cost of some items for the event. So you may not have to come out of pocket. They gave us a $25 donation to help pay for some items already. I'm excited to learn how they may continue to help us to help our community. I've learned they have a program where their employees can volunteer to help us out! WOW! I'll let you know more later.

Inez has campaigned for cake donations and hopes to get PEPSI to donate some drinks.
Our family is responding well to the event also. They are excited about plans for us to put on a fish fry in their area i.e Inman and Beaufort!

Mean time, I've printed up tickets for us to sell before the event to purchase what we'll need.
Sharon and Robert Croissant gracioulsy agreed to print them for us. I had some card stock and ink left over from a project that Trey did last year. thank God for Spring cleaning!

Thanks Sharon and Robert offering to print the tickets. don't worry, we'll need more print work done I'm sure.
WE still need your help with the other items.

The ticket sales will generate the funds and the public exposure for the program.

Charley and I discussed at the last board meeting if each board member sold 20 tickets. We'd have enought $ to pay for everything we will before the event.

Call me when you get time. I will have some tickets with me and the others will be at the house with Trey and his assistant.
Let me know if you'd like to meet to get them or pick them up from the house.

I've sold a few of them already to my neighbor and co-workers!!! Lyn and George Whitehead got there tickets today.

Looking forward to hear from you and hope that all is well.

Please call me on my cell phone , 318-2210 so that we can continue to coordinate for the event on the February 27th at Seven Oaks Park. It's coming together very well.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope everyone is doing well into the new year.
It's been a few months since the last update, because I was not able to get on the blog to make updates. Thanks to Robert Croissant- board member, I am able to be get back in to share the latest going on's with Trey's Transition.

With that being said.

Please continue to pray for health, wisdom, and courage to make this life special for us all.
Congrats to Milton Kimpson and Family on the birth of their baby boy!

We're now officially a Non-profit organization!! With the help of board members and Mr. Mink- agent from the IRS to update information to the application. We became a 501 C 3 organization in December '09. We've only had a few board meetings during the end of the year to begin the next building block of making the Young Adult program a reality. We talked about fundraising opportunities to raise the funds. A report from the grant writers indicate that grantors are stretched to give funds because of the slow economic conditions. Some grantors are only giving to existing programs. So our efforts to earn funds will truly be a grassroots effort. Our grant writers are eager to engage. There is hope as long as you believe that hope exists.
There are a few local business' that are able to help out and I've made application to Sam's Wholesale and Wal-Mart to assist with funding our efforts for they Fish Fry we're planning for next month.
We hope as a board to firm up the plans for the event his week during our board meeting on January 28, at the Richland County Public Library- Bank of America conference room.

Several members have submitted ideas for the fundraising campaign. The ideas include the following:

Creating a campaign summary that promotes the fundraising effort, gives an example of what the effort is for and how the donor can make their contribution to us. I've spoken with the Bank Manager, Marggie Mitchell and Gale Rabon at the St. Andrews Road location in Columbia SC how donors can make their contributions to any Bank of America location. The donor will need to indicate making the donation to the "James D. Irby III, Contribution Account". It's that simple.

A suggestion was made to have contribution jars placed at stores in the community, flyers, and business cards to generate funds and get the word out about our efforts for the young adult program. We plan to firm up that effort at the board meeting.

We're still on the timetable for Trey's Transition to open sometime this summer.
There are several persons that I've met over the last few months that are interested in the development of our program. One young lady , Beth was a student Dutchfork High School, worked as a volunteer in Ms. Essie Ford's class. She lost her job recently from the Babcock Center- (downsizing).

Changes in medicaid funding to caregivers have also affected how services are delivered.
Therapy, and Personal Care Aide services have been cut or reduced. Which has effected the quality of care and performance to our population.

She, like so many others in our community are eager to work and don't have a place to help others. I hope that our efforts will soon help to employ those from the community interested in helping others with special needs. I also hope this effort will stimulate the economy in many ways. We will be providing a number of services e.g transportation, catering, thearpy to assist the young adults to get to and from the program.

PLEASE encourage others to support our efforts. If you or anyone has questions about our efforts, call me at 803-732-5734 or email me @ james_irby2000@yahoo.com


Thank you for your help.


James Irby

501 c 3 update

I sent the annual accounting period information to Mr. Mink of the IRS. I also left him a message in that regard. I hope to hear from him soon as to what else we can do to be accepted as a non-profit.

I'll share more as information comes along. We need to schedule our next meeting for October, 09'.

I'd like to have a full board meeting this month if possible before the November, December holiday season. Let's look @ meeting sometime during the last week of the month.
Thanks everyone and chat with you soon.

James

board meeting and first invite to inform about 3's Transition

A board meeting was held last week @ the Richland County Library. Thanks to Lyn Whitehead for suggesting having the meeting @ the Main Library campus and Ms. Lorraine Catoe, from the Library for confirming the reservation on short notice. It's a free space to county residence and non-profit organizations. John H., Charley S., Jarrett S., Lyn W. , Beverly C., and Errika K. were not able to attend because of previous engagements. No word from Angela W., Richard C. or Tom A. So Milton K. and I held the meeting.

The primary discussion centered around getting the 501 application approved. I shared about sending the response back to the IRS, Mr. Gerald Mink is the case manager handling the application and looking forward to their response as to what else we needed to do for the application to be approved. We talked about continuing efforts to fundraise in order to earn $ for the program. We talked about possible golf tournament with assistance from an event planner. I shared about an invitation from Ms. Essie Ford, Self Contained teacher @ Dutch Fork High for a representative to share with her parents during their Open house about Trey's Transition. I made contact with Lyn, Charley previous to the meeting about attending the event. Milton also ageed that we should share with the school about our program plans in an effort to getting the word out about the program efforts. We talked about putting a brochure together to share the mission , purpose...
Our mission statement and why the program came into being, picture of Trey and other participants and the need we hope to serve. The motion to attend the meeting and prepare the brochure was Approved. A copy of the brochure was prepared and handed out during the meeting held @ DFHS.

There were several parents, students and special education teachers @ the open house and expessed excitement about our efforts. Inez, Trey and I presented the brochure and information how the idea of Trey's Transition was started. We were well received and several parents were interested in viewing information from the blog about our progress. We talked about the 501 status and plans for growth in our board of directors in assisting to create the funds necessary to confirm the old attage, "Many hands make light work". It was good to see Trey's teachers again, sorrow to learn about the passing of one teacher, Ms. Thomas. We were also excited to know there was a new teacher (I'm sorry I forgot her name and will annouce later) from Pennsylvania in their mist. She brings new life and experience to the classroom and information that may in fact help our program in the near future.

I also shared with Milton about my contact with county councilman Malinowski for the Irmo area. He shared about us possibly receiving a portion of a tourism grant from Richland County by having others to spend time in our area during a function that we organize. I asked him about getting a commercial license so that we can start our program in a smaller building or home costing less money to get up to DHEC code, the program stated. He shared for us to get in touch with the county office for details about those plans. Milton also shared about the St. John's Baptist Church special needs and Puppet Ministry church for all ages. We hope to be able to coordinate their talent into our program activity plans.



I received phone message from Mr. Mink, case manager for the IRS handling our 501 application. He's ready to close out the application status and needs us to confirm one more item on the application (having to do with the annual reporting period). I've left message with him to contact me in that regard and plans to submit in writing a response to the issue.



We're getting closer to making the program a reality and thank you one and all again for your support. I left several brochures with Essie's class and hope those that read the blog will encourage others to contact me with interest about efforts to help this organization grow.



I hope your Autumn season is coming along well. Watch the summer fade, the leaves fall, get out rakes and lawn mulchers. It's getting COOL!


I will be discontinuing my AOL email account and using yahoo. You can now reach me @ james_irby2000@yahoo.com. economics!
James II

501 C 3 update

We received a response from the IRS about the application. They needed us to explain a few answers from the application. Several board members got together over a 10 day period to review the questions. The response was sent back to the IRS on September 4, 2009.

We may hear from them before the end of October regarding our status.

We're still working on the operations and training manuals. We're also accepting donations for our efforts to create the program.

Trey received $10 at the Wofford College football game this past weekend from a young man.
His name is David Hatcher. We were watching the ballgame together, cheering on the Terriers to victory. David came up to Trey and wanted him to have the money to help. Trey smiled and we accepted the fund. We shared with David and his family the program plans and they were excited to hear about the plans and shared their own personal story. David's mother expressed how pleased it was to see her son show compassion. Thank you David, parents and grandparents again for your contribution.

I also met a friend from Wofford who's interested in helping the community thru vocational means of assisting the hearing and visually impaired in packaging product. Keiser Thomas III is the director of Operations for JSAC LLC. The New Balance in Manufacturing out of Spartanburg SC. His email address is jsackt@charter.net. I hope to learn more about their business plan in an effort to help our program vocationally in the future.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Septmenber 24, 2009.

The location and time have not been confirmed yet. I hope to have the meeting @ my home if plans work out.

I'm excited about our future, keep the faith, continue to do good work for yourself and others and contact me if you hear of any other fascinating ways to build our program.

The 501 application has arrived!

I (James) checked the bank account recently and learned the application fee has been cashed. So it's safe to assume the Federal Government has recieved the application and the process for reviewing it is in the way.

I'm excited to share that I met a parent and former challenger baseball player (Monique and Cory). I had not seen them in years since Trey and Cory were teammates. She was bringing him to "Camp Sunshine". This is a wonderful day camp from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for indivduals with special needs, ages 5 to 26. The camp provides activities on the Denny Terrace Community Center campus. Richland County Recreation Commission provides quality staff for the campers. They do activities on the campus as well as going swimming and bowling in the community. The camp will have one more week this month and the next session will start in July. For more information, call Linda Carter @ 750-7672.

She told me that Cory is 18 years old. She was looking for afterschool and summer programing for him. I was excited to share our plans for Trey's Transition. I sent her the blog and Mission statement for her to view and get back in touch with me if she would be interested in getting involved with our efforts.

Jarrett Slacum (committee members) is considering being the coordinator for our meetings. He's on the Food Preparation and Safety committee.

Continue to encourage others to view this blog to spread the word about our efforts.

The committee members recently talked about getting Trey's Transition on FaceBook.
I'm looking into getting an account set up.

Charley Spencer (North Dakota) committee member came up with a great idea to extend the webcam to other members that maynot be able to attend our meetings. If you'd like to know more about our webcam effort, contact me @ jamesirby8@aol.com or charlie2wheels@csicable.net .

I met WC Hoeke this week. He's a staff member of Family Connections, an parent of a child with special needs and a committee member planning their Annual Conference for their organization next year. Family Connections links parents that have disabled children together and shares information to the community in an effort to advocate for those with special needs. The mission of Family Connection of South Carolina is to strengthen families of children with special needs through parent support. We talked about me being a part of their committee in their efforts to plan for next year's conference. We talked about the need to share more information about the growing popuulation of young adults with special needs, the services they could benefit from and us working together. I'll keep you posted on our efforts. Family Connections website is http://www.familyconnectionsc.org/

Our next meeting will be anounced soon.
Thanks for your support and prayers.

Another milestone achieved

I (James Irby) hope this message finds everyone doing well. It's been a while since a message has been posted. Everyone's been busy since our last meeting with work, celebrating holidays, and helping others to make it day to day.

There have been small meetings with some committee members to continue efforts to develop the program before the Fall of this year. The "Power of One" fundraiser continues to be a success. The board members have done a good job sharing the message about Trey's Transition. I'm excited to report that we have the $750 needed to submit the 501 c 3 application for non profit status. The application was placed in the mail today!!!

We're one step closer to making the program a reality. Several board members are working on the policy, procedures and training manuals for the program. We also have severl others interested in the effort for the program. Ms. Gloria (Candy) Spigner (nurse), Ms. Charmine Primus (clinical social worker), Ms. Dottie Davis to name a few.

There will be a lunch meeting later this month to continue working on the assingments for the manuals.

We need someone gifted in web design, and a accountant (experience in adult day care) to be a part of our efforts.

Thanks again to everyone for their efforts and have a cool summer!