The Soft Pitch

Blogging from the cell block today … locked up for the Muscular Dystrophy Association.

 I’m doing my best to raise money for MDA   and looking for a little help from my friends. 

The jailbird raising funds for MDA!

Believe me, there have been moments when I wondered why I agreed to this.  But now that I’m here talking to these kids, there’s no doubt.  Kids just want to be kids – even if they’re in wheel chairs or wearing braces.  I like knowing we’re helping them.  At camp, they can do what all kids do at camp – go horseback riding, crafts, roast marshmallows – they just need a little extra help in case they have medical emergencies.  That’s where MDA comes in.  In between calls, e-mails and tweets to raise money, I’m talking to staffers and listening to kids talk – they all say the same thing: Camp is the best week of their life!  Imagine that, helping someone to have the best week of their life. 

These are the times I’m proud to work for Avnet.  First for getting me involved (through Al – thanks), second for supporting me with taking the time to do this (thanks again) and for giving me wonderful connections to colleagues and friends willing to support me (thanks a third time).

No surprises here, though.  Avnet has long had a commitment to the communities we serve. It’s part of our culture and how we do business.  One of the things I learned a long time ago is that people don’t care how much you know or how much you do, until they know how much you care.  Care about their business.  Care about them as people.  Care about those around them.  Sure we make good, sound business decisions based on long-term strategy and the drive for results.  BUT, deep down we’re all human and we like to do business with people we like.  And at the end of the day, we’re all in this together, so if we can do a little something good to help the community along the way, GREAT!

 So, time for me to go back to fund raising for MDA and see if I can’t raise enough to send another kid to camp.  For every $800 I raise, another kid gets to roast marshmallows under the stars and make a sand candle.  Want to help?  Here’s the website to donate.

 And let me take a moment here to thank a lot of folks who have already donated: Gail, Al, Steve, Roy, Joal, CarolAnn, Chris, Jun, Michele, Charlie, Ed, Steve, Bret, Grant, Teri, MaryAnn, Sean, Kathy, Jan, Mark, Jim, Linda, Erin, Philip, Rick, Stephanie, Steve, Julie, Joal, Cheryl, Michaelle, Ed, Sonia, Jane.  Thanks to all!  I started off wondering how I was going to do this – and now together we’ve raised more than $5,000 so far.  Now I know how I’m going to do this.  With a little help from my friends.

I’ve been thinking about the reports I’ve read recently about donations being down for toys for kids at Christmas. In one of my last posts I wrote about a branch office of Avnet Electronics Marketing hosting an annual party with customers and suppliers to raise money for charity. And last week I learned about another Avnet grassroots effort to support local kids during the holidays. Long story short, our team at the new Avnet Global Solutions Center  hosted a party for employees. Suppliers donated some prizes like DVD players, big screen TVs and Wii systems for a party and all employees received prize drawing tickets for a shot at the prizes. Employees could also get extra tickets in return for a donation, then Santa made a visit, they ate lots of food and drank hot cocoa.   Then they counted up the money to buy presents for the kids who didn’t get picked during the Salvation Army’s Christmas Angel program.  Apparently there’s always some.  This year the solutions center team raised almost $5,000 – and Avnet, Inc. matched bringing the total to $10,000 for these kids.  Now here’s the cool part – then the employees went on a $10,000 shopping spree with the Salvation Army in hand to buy the things these kids and their families really needed and wanted.  They went to the local Wal-Mart, where the manager gave them an across the board 10% discount to make those dollars go a little further.  What a great way to spread some holiday cheer! Kudos to the team and to our suppliers for finding a way to have some holiday fun and help others at the same time!

Traci Henderson unloads part of the $10,000 in Toys donated to Salvation Army

Kevin Olson, John Beimfohr and Traci Henderson join the ranks of Salvation Army Angels shopping for toys.

Every journalist or event manager is looking for industry experts to be quoted or speak at events. Avnet has some of the best and most quoted in the biz. Each week, my friend and VP of PR Michelle Gorel and I will highlight individuals who make a difference in accelerating the success of our customers, suppliers, employees, communities we serve or shareholders. Hopefully we can make your job easier.
 
Why the theme? Well this is soft pitch versus the hardball pitch. My favorite sports are 16″ softball and baseball (yes huge Cub fan)…Michelle is not a sports fan, hence the pearls. Is shopping a sport? But, I have to give her some props she does like to camp, my view of camping is being at a motel with black and white TV/no cable….so she maybe tougher than me…I know she is smarter.
 
So if you are looking for what’s hot, trendy, comments/features or a speaker just post here or call us, we will get you our most qualified employee. If you have questions about Avnet or branding again just make a post and one of us will respond.
 
So who will I feature in week # uno…me ! I figure let’s start at the low end of the food chain. After creating a 88 minute documentary and being the founder of the Chicago 16″ Softball Hall of Fame, I’m now the historian on 16″ softball and have been quoted in every Chicago publication and media outlet since the 90″s. My fav was being quoted in Sports illustrated. What the heck does this have to do with Avnet…our company has supported the softball in Phoenix for over 6 years by sponsoring tournaments internally and externally which has helped our employee engagement and morale, brand and community efforts…by just having fun….which I hope we will do in this blog.
 
Al Maag 
Chief Communications Officer
Avnet, Inc.