I am not sure who is aware, and who is not, but Amanda and I have re-located to Austin, TX. It took a lot of pondering and decision making on our part, but we are thrilled so far with the decision to make the move. Unfortunately that means we won’t be there for Help-Portrait Wilmington this year.
What does this mean for Help-Portrait Wilmington? Well, we need someone who is willing to step up and take the reigns from me. We had a GREAT event last year, and I know it can be even bigger and better this year. I will be getting involved with a local Austin chapter, but I will need someone to take over the various accounts (email, twitter, blog, facebook, etc…) for Help-Portrait Wilmington. I am more than happy to continue hosting the blog as well.
I know December is creeping up on us, so whoever wants to take on this responsibility, please let me know ASAP. It was a lot of work last year, but trust me…I received more spiritually and emotionally than I put into it. It was well worth the time and energy spent. I will be more than happy to hand the passwords for the account over to the willing party, and point you in the right direction based on my experiences last year.
Hope this post finds everyone doing well,
–
Kevin deLeon
c. 910.233.2905
t. @kevindeleon
t. @wilmington_hp
I am going to keep this update short, because I am absolutely exhausted. I would lust like to thank EVERYONE for coming out today and helping out. It was truly an amazing day, and there is no way I can express in words how much this event touched my life and my heart.
I would especially like to thank our subjects. I know many will not be able to read this, but you guys are some of the most beautiful, wonderful people I have ever met. I think we as volunteers may have received so much more than we gave.
There is a flickr group that has been started, and you can view some of the behind the scenes pics there. Please if you have any behind-the-scenes pics, throw them up there, we would love to see them…I will be uploading more in the coming days, so please keep stopping by.
The video footage that was taken today will be edited down, and I will post an update on this site and through our Twitter account @wilmington_hp.
Again, thank you all, and so much love from me to you. Merry Christmas, happy holidays and let’s do this again next year!!!
Well, the clock is ticking, and I hope everyone is as excited as I am. Everything is in place, and Saturday should be awesome.
I would like to take this time to remind everyone of a few details:
When: Saturday, December 12th 9am – 3pm
Where: Good Shepherd Center – 811 Martin St., 28401
Please remember to encourage friends, family and anyone you know to come by that day to bring donations (food, toiletries, clothes) for Good Shepherd Center. There is a wish-list on their website, and I would like to add COATS/JACKETS to that list. It’s getting cold outside and coats are in short supply. As always money is welcome as well. Anything helps folks, so spend a little less on a present this year, and give it to someone who truly needs it.
I would like to say thanks to Scott Litten/Good Shepherd Center and Image Finishers, Inc. Our two sponsors have been a huge help, and a huge benefit to this project. I cannot express how much we appreciate the efforts of both.
A little about our Sponsors:
Good Shepherd Center: The mission of Good Shepherd Center is to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and foster transition of those in crisis to independence in the community.
a hot meal. a warm bed. a return path to housing.
Image Finishers, Inc.: Image Finishers, Inc. specializes in professional quality digital printing. Prints can be made from all types of media and files, color and B&W film. Image Finishers offers reprints and enlargements from wallet size all the wasy up to 24×36; with most services completed within 48 hours or less. They also offer photo restoration, greeting cards, a full line of digital scanning services, canvas prints and large format ink jet printing…and they do it all in house!! This is a great locally owned business, with great people working there. Please consider using them for all of your printing and imaging needs.
Thanks again to all of the photographers and volunteers taking part in Help-Portrait in Wilmington. It’s going to be a very special day!
First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Hope you and your family have a wonderful day and get to spend some quality time together. Definitely take a second or two to ponder on what you have to be thankful for in you life.
In other news, Image Finishers, Inc. of Wilmington are donating their services, and are going to produce all of the prints for Help-Portrait Wilmington. We cannot express how much this helps us out, and how much we appreciate those guys getting involved. It just goes to show what great local businesses we have in this town.
Details of Help-Portrait Wilmington that we KNOW so far:
We are encouraging anyone in the community to come by and donate to Good Shepherd Center on that day. They are a great organization who feed the hungry, house the homeless and take care of those that are less fortunate in our community. There is a ‘wish-list’ on their website, and also on our ‘get-involved’ page. Please consider bringing by some coats, canned goods, books or whatever else you can spare this holiday season.
I think we are good on photographers for the day. Now this COULD change depending on people’s schedules. We do however still need some volunteers for greeting, assisting and also hair styling and make-up. If you know anyone interested, or that might want to help out, please send them to our website and have them sign-up on the get-involved page.
I worked on a press release yesterday, and will be releasing it to the media Friday, or possibly Monday.
Everything is coming together nicely, and we would like to thank everyone for their passion and involvement in this project. It amazes me the outpouring of interest and help we have gotten on this project in such a small amount of time. If you have any questions, as usual, please contact us.
We will be partnering with the Good Shepherd Center here in Wilmington. They are an excellent local non-profit committed to feeding the hungry, housing the homeless and generally just helping all of those who are in need. They have a wonderful video vignette on their website that I suggest everyone check out to get a better idea of who and how they are helping.
Good Shepherd Center has also offered to be our hosting location! I am meeting Friday morning with Scott to discuss the specifics and get a tour of the facility, so I will have more information on that coming soon.
You can now sign up to receive updates from this website via email newsletter by using the “Subscribe” form on the right. We value your privacy, and will never SPAM you. You will only receive updates relevant to Help-Portrait Wilmington.
Things are coming together nicely, and I hope everyone is getting excited about the event. Keep spreading the word, and let’s make Help-Portrait Wilmington a special and memorable event for everyone involved.
Thanks to all of you who have already volunteered your time and energy to help out with this event. There is a lot to do, and only 24 days left to do it in, so I would like to break down what major issues are left to accomplish and where we stand.
People -Of course, that is the point of this whole thing. I really don’t care whether 5 people or 200 people show up, the goal of Help-Portrait is to make people smile this holiday season and feel loved. I really want to reach those people who would be touched the most with these photos: families with children/or adults who may have terminal or long-term illnesses, single mothers, military families, veterans, the homeless, etc.; those who can’t afford professional photos, but who would appreciate them the most. We need to spread the word. You may already know people that would benefit from this. You could contact charities, organizations, hospitals, churches etc that may know people who would be interested. I’m asking everyone to help out with this so we can help as many people as we can. Social networking has been a HUGE part of this, so if you are on Facebook, Twitter, etc., spread the word.
Location - This is a big sticking point right now, because of course, if we don’t have a location, it’s hard to decide HOW many people we try to get the word out to, and where to tell them to go, haha. We basically need a place large enough to setup a few smallish photo stations. I am thinking 2-4 stations with 1-2 lights per station. I would like to have the event run from around 9am until 3ish pm, which means we would either need access the day or night before to setup/dropoff equipment, or preferrably access the next morning around 7am to setup early. Take a look at the Nashville test run video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9tu1XrBn3A) to get an idea of what the setup coud be like. Of course, once again, if we can only get a smaller location that is perfectly fine. We just advertise on a smaller scale. I really need ideas for a location so that I can lock this down soon. Any ideas?
Printing - Printing is also going to be a bit tricky, so let me know your thoughts. I would like to give each participant one 5×7 or 8×10 per the official Help-Portrait suggestions. Obviously the more printers/laptops we have there to edit and print the better. The printers will need to be photo quality printers, we will need photo paper and plenty of ink. That doesn’t mean the printers have to be multi-thousand dollar printers. We just need something that prints a nice color or black and white portrait. I would like to try and get a couple of local sponsors to help offset printing costs for everyone (donate photo paper, ink, money, whatever). I know that asking to use your personal printer/paper/ink is a lot to ask. Many of us are strapped for cash this time of year as it is. If you aren’t comfortable with that, I completely understand. Printing is costly for sure. I will have my personal editing laptop, and a printer there the day of. I know Nancy has offered to bring her personal photo printer/ink/paper as well (thanks!). Any suggestions here would also be gladly heard.
Sponsors - Any ideas send them my way! We want people here looking to help, not looking to promote themselves. If promotion ends up being a side effect, that’s fine. If you guys know of any local companies that would like to help out and offset the cost of printing, donate a location, lighting, ink, paper, printers, whatever…let me know. I will happily throw their banner up on the website, and shout their praises from the rooftops. However, they have to know that unless we find a non-profit to partner with, their donations will not be tax deductible, but they WILL go to an awesome cause, and any residual monetary donations WILL go to a non-profit in the area. Which leads me to my next bullet…
Non-Profit Partner – I would LOVE to partner with a non-profit in the community. I have an email into a few, but if anyone can think of one, I would be happy to look into it. This could help out in several ways, one of which would be so that people/businesses could donate THROUGH this non-profit so that we can encourage businesses to help us offset printing costs. Some businesses won’t even consider donating unless they can write it off (this could be because of company policy, legal reasons etc.). Another reason partnering would be great is because the non-profit (shelter, food kitchen, battered womens shelter, etc.) probably has ties to the community we are looking to help. We would also love to encourage people to stop by the day of the event to donate food, coats, books, etc. These donated good could go to the same non-profit.
Gear - I have one white backdrop, and enough lighting for probably two stations myself. I am going to email the photographers who have volunteered separately to get an idea of what we are working with here. If we end up shooting somewhere that has a nice outside location around the building, and the weather is nice…that is an option for a couple of shooters too.
Volunteers – The more the merrier. We are doing pretty good on photographers and depending on the amount of photographers that volunteer vs. size of the venue, we may have to use your skills for editing and printing (but trust me..we still need your skills!). We still need hair stylists, make-up artists, greeters, anyone who you think may want to be involved…encourage them to do so.
I would like to have a meeting once we get a location finalized. I would also like to have at least one dry run for the photographers and other volunteers one of these weekends before the event. If you have ANY questions, please don’t hesitate to email me here or call me anytime on my cellphone, 910.233.2905. I will continue to send out updates via email, update the website, H-P Ning Community, and Twitter account with all of the new info.
Lastly, thank you all for your interest in this event. I know there isn’t much time to get all of this together, and that is why I need your help. I know this event can be a success and touch people whether it ends up being large or small in scale. If I have forgotten anything, please let me know.
Welcome to the official site for the Wilmington, NC Help-Portrait Event.
We only have 26 days to go to get this thing rolling. We are still working on a location, but hopefully we will have that nailed down early next week.
If you still aren’t sure exactly what Help-Portrait is, please cruise over to the about page, or the official Help-Portrait site and check things out. We would love to have your help in making this event a success. So whether you are are a potential sponsor, or you just want to help out, please sign up on our volunteer list.
Thanks, and here are a couple of videos to help you better understand what Help-Portrait is!
