Heyyyy.... Another Walkathon!

Hey boys & Girls,

As many of you know, I have been volunteering with the Camp to Belong program since it spread to Massachusetts in 2005. To keep it brief, the goal of CTB is to reunite siblings that have been placed in separate foster care. In this country, there are currently about 500,000 foster children separated from at least one brother or sister.

With opportunities to spend time together being few and far between (and usually in a DSS office), the Camp to Belong organization was born. Sibling groups are brought together for a week of summer camp, as well as one Sunday each month to share experiences that otherwise would have been missed.

(ok, this is getting longer than I was hoping for)

So anyway... This Sunday, we are having a walkathon in Newton, MA to raise funds for this year's camp. You can sponsor me at http://www.firstgiving.com/harveyshepard1

If you could take a second and just put up a couple of dollars, it would really help bridge the gap. It takes $500 to send just one kid to camp this August (mostly due to transportation and insurance costs).

Well, if you got this far, thanks for reading...

Harvey

Great News in Cancer Research!

From WWLP.com:

(NBC) - Experts have found a way to use a cancer patient's own immune system cells to kill their disease.
Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center took a specific white blood cell from a man who had Stage four Melanoma.
They then modified the immune system cell to target the cancer, and created multiple copies. After the patient was infused with 5 billion cloned cells, the researchers found the tumors went away and didn't return for at least two years.
There are several caveats to note: the new method has only been done on one patient, and this therapy works exclusively for patients who have certain immune system cells and whose tumors have specific proteins.
Using a patient's own immune system to fight cancer is called Immunotherapy.

Company Yearbook

Hi all,
I’m currently working on our 2007 company yearbook! I’m looking for ideas/designs for our yearbook cover, background designs (to use behind pictures), clip art (JPG or TIF files only), etc. Anyone who has pictures or stuff you want included in the yearbook, please let me know/give them to me. (Not Christmas pictures, though! I have tons!) I want to get all the stuff together before we all get too busy. I’m using School Annual's online program to make the yearbook, but if you would like to make pages in another program and give me a 300 dpi JPG, that would be fine. Or, if you'd like to help me make some pages, I can give you the access codes to go online. I could also use help coming up with some funky, “different” ideas for layouts and themes. Below are the topics we’d like to cover in this yearbook. Let me know if I’ve left out any work-related events! I'm also thinking it would be great to have everyone give me a baby picture of themself and put that in the yearbook, too! I'd like to make this book more like a typical "middle/elementary school" book, but a play on that idea--more humorous!
Thanks for your help!
~meg

1. Table of Contents page—page 1
2. Dedication—page 2
3. Staff photos—individuals or groups, maybe funny ones this year? Baby pictures? (I want to make it different from last year) Broken down by departments (or alphabetical???):
Brothers, Management, Upstairs staff (Seniors, Undergrads, Sports, Accounting, etc.), CSRs, Outside Sales, Downstairs Sales, Photographers, Rocky Hill staff, Finishing, HTR.
4. Candid photos—collages
5. BBQ–last prep meeting—ice cream sundae party—karaoke!—guest speakers (April?)
6. movie night (August 8)
7. Rock Cats game & picnic (August 1)
8. any other work-related special events/trips/fun things
9. Jenna’s Jack & Jill, shower, & Wedding (July & September)
10. Jackie’s Baby Shower & LJ (September)
11. Crystal’s Shower & Wedding (September & October)
12. Relay for Life (May)
13. Autism Walk (September)
14. any other charity events
15. Halloween (November)
16. Xmas events: Yankee Swap—Seasonal dinner—Core dinner/trip—our Xmas card pic (all in December)
17. Birthdays (all year)
18. Going-away parties: Katie & Mike (June & February?)
19. “Welcome—New Staff”: new core people: Crystal, Karen Barr, Tracey, Laurie, Vin, etc.
20. Awards (???)
21. changes in the company (???) (Examples: New studio locations, department changes, job role changes, new equipment.)
22. Superlatives with pictures! (vote on these??? Funny pictures???)
23. Thanks

Spell-check runs amok in Pa. yearbook

Several high school students got new, and unflattering, last names

From the Associated Press:

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. - A computer spell-checker run amok christened several Pennsylvania high school students with new — and in some cases unflattering — last names.
Middletown Area High School's yearbook listed Max Zupanovic as "Max Supernova," Kathy Carbaugh as "Kathy Airbag" and Alessandra Ippolito as "Alexandria Impolite," just to name a few.
"It was kind of funny, but kind of rude at the same time," Ippolito said.

The mistakes were found on four of the yearbook's 176 pages, co-editor Amanda Gummo said.
Ed Patrick of Taylor Publishing, which printed the book, said his company is responsible for the errors and will provide free stickers printed with the correct names.
"It happens all the time, every year," Patrick said. "Look at any yearbook in the country."