Focus on Freight

Toys For Tots 2011

Big thanks to our partners at PRG for their assistance with our Toys for Tots campaign 2011!

Merry Christmas!

Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 2011 and PEI

We have done it again, PEI/ Paradise Empowers has once again broken their fundraising record from the previous year!!!!! Even with our late start this year, for 2011 we have raised $6314.00 for The American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer!!!!!! The last time we checked Alyssa Fleury (who heads up our fundraising efforts with MSABC), was in 7^th place as highest fundraising individual and team Paradise Empowers was in 36^th place. Thank you to everyone for all your support and contributions.

 

 This year’s Bake Sale brought in a record breaking $600.00, thanks go out to Alyssa and Craig Fleury who stayed up till 5:30 in the morning the day of the sale, baking all the cookies and muffins from the cookie dough and muffin mix that Nedrah Weaver donated, making cakes and cupcakes and decorating them in true pink breast cancer fashion. Thank you to Chris and Elizabeth Carver for donating their bikini cake, Amanda Cartledge for donating her cookies and helping to stay and work the sale, Jeff and Margot Deutsch for making the famous cheesecake, Rhoda Langford and Gayle Smith for their yummy brownies.  A huge thank you to Sarah Ferguson, Ann Dobbertin, and Gayle Smith for helping advertise the Bake Sale, Sarah even walked our street corralling neighboring businesses to come over and show their support.  We thank Jessica Chandler and Pirate Printing for the as always awesome t-shirts for the walk. Huge thank you’s to the entire staff of PEI for buying, donating, and participating in this year’s walk, we really couldn’t have done all of it with out you and your tremendous support!!!

 

 On the day of the walk, it started off at a bitter 43 degrees with blustery winds, but we still had 20 of our closest family, friends, and co-workers show up to walk. The walk itself was a great display of love and support for all those affected by breast cancer. People lined the streets of Atlanta proudly adorned in pink cheering on the walkers as we passed by on the 5K walk. It was a breathtaking scene as we walked over the first hill to see the mass of walkers in front of us and behind us and an even more inspiring outpour of support as we crossed the finish line, you could barely hear yourself over all the cheers and music.

 

Next year, our goal is to become a flagship supporter for MSABC, we will need a minimum of 150 registered walkers and lots of donations. So please tell your friends and family about this year’s event and start planning for next year! If you need any information, please contact Alyssa Fleury (800-536-3374 ext 125 or afleury@shippei.com)

 

Hope to see you next year!!! Once again, THANK YOU!!!!! We are Making Strides Against Breast Cancer!

 

Paradise Empowers Cincinnati Mercy Maternity Drive

With the holidays approaching fast, PEI wants to take some time to give back to the local community. Our corporate office in Atlanta Georgia heads up a non-profit organization called Paradise Empowers. (http://www.shippei.com/about-pei/paradise-empowers/) This organizations aim is to assist at risk youth in the community. Paradise Empowers recently established a program to help educate teen parents through the beginning of their pregnancy and the beginning of their baby’s life based on the parents as teachers curriculum.  This new program has inspired the Cincinnati office to team up with Mercy Maternity Home. (http://www.mercymaternityhome.org/) This organization shares many of the same views and goals of the Paradise Empowers Teen Parent Program and seems to be a perfect complement in to the program in Atlanta.

With that being said, PEI Cincinnati is starting a donation drive for Mercy Maternity Home. It will run between November 10^th and December 8^th. We will be looking for the below products to be donated for the home:

• Toilet Paper
• Paper Towels
• Kleenex
• Liquid Dishwasher Detergent
• Diapers (Newborn to size 1)
• Baby Wipes

If you and/or your company decide you would like to participate in this drive with us we will make sure to deliver the donation in your company name on December 9^th. We also invite you to pass this along to any other companies or individuals you may know. There will also be an open house at the home in December. Contact us if you’d like to attend.

You can either keep the collection at your office and let us know when it is complete so that we can come out and pick them up or you can drop them off at our office, Monday through Friday, between the hours of 8:00a and 5:00p. See the address listed below. We really hope you will join us in helping a great organization during this holiday season. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to check out the links above or call us. We look forward to hearing from you all!

 

PEI / DSCS

305 Artillery Park Dr.

Suite 202

Ft. Mitchell, KY 41017

 

Toys For Tots

PEI / Paradise Empowers will again be acting as a drop site in 2011 for the Marine Corps Toys For Tots campaign. We are collecting new unwrapped toys at our company headquarters located at:

598 Red Oak Road

Stockbridge, GA 30281 

The last date for dropoff will be Thursday December 15th. 

Semper Fi!

Paradise Empowers Tornado relief

On April 28^th 2011 an EF3 tornado with winds of about 140 miles per hour destroyed 147 homes in our neighboring county of Spalding. At PEI we truly value community service and we were compelled to help – somehow. We reached out to Lt. Tim Henderson of the Spalding County Fire Department, who was in charge of the tornado relief effort and we were able to assist them with the transportation of supplies from a GEMA facility to their distribution center. In addition our non-profit organization Paradise Empowers donated $4,500.00 in gift cards to the families in temporary housing who were affected by the storm. Volunteers are still needed for clean-up of the community follow the link for more information:https://www.facebook.com/pages/Volunteer-Network-Tornado-Disaster-Relief-for-Spalding-County/201623573209883?sk=wall

Below is a picture of the path of the storm.

 

 

The Last Album

In September 2010 we posted about PEI's support of "Testaments of the Heart" an art exhibition which was presented at Emory University's Center for Ethics. Through that sponsorship we were introduced to Dr. Ann Weiss, the director of The Last Album.org "Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau" a traveling exposition of photographs that were discovered during a tour of Auschwitz in 1986. The photos and documentary will be exhibited at the Marcus Jewish Community Center in Atlanta and then the Downtown Initiative for Visual Arts in Eugene Oregon. PEI is happy to manage the transportation of such an important exhibit. Go to http://thelastalbum.org/content/ for additional information.

CVG showing Love on World Autism Awareness Day

Every year around the beginning of April the entire staff at the PEI Atlanta station dresses in blue in recognition of World Autism Awareness Day. Long-time employee Scott Friar is all too familiar with the complex developmental disorder as his son Zachary was diagnosed with autism a number of years ago. It is estimated that 1 on 110 children are diagnosed with autism which is more than childhood cancer, juvenile diabetes, and pediatric AIDS combined.

 This year we had some additional support from the PEI Cincinnati station. See the images below:

 
 
What an amazing team of supportive people we have here at PEI.

Thanks for the "blue" Love CVG!

Lisa Williams Rescues Atlanta’s Lost and Forgotten

Living Water for Girls - one of the charities we have posted about before and donated to in the past has been featured in a local magazine. Click the link below to read about it.

http://fayettewoman.com/girls-lisa-williams-rescues-atlantas-lost-forgotten.html

From the article

Heart for Africa

It is such an honor to work for a company that is so committed to service not only to the local community, but to the global community as well. Once again Paradise Empowers, the not-for-profit arm of the PEI companies, has made a considerable donation of $20,000.00 to the Heart for Africa charity. Heart for Africa focuses on the needs of children in Swaziland, a small nation in Africa, where there is a lack of food, clean water, shelter, and medical care for the huge population of orphans. The Heart for Africa offers programs for child sponsorship as well as trip coordination for groups of individuals to serve the needs of the people directly. In addition one of the major projects Heart for Africa has developed called "Project Canaan" is a multi-faceted initiative that includes the development of large-scale farming, fisheries, poultry houses, and other self sustaining business opportunities. We were inspired by this project and we are so happy to support the projects of Heart for Africa and the people of Swaziland.

Good Deed of the Week

At PEI we continually try to serve the community, and we strive to maintain a culture of service that our employees embrace. Now that we have entered the holiday season we have had numerous opportunities to assist local organizations including the Atlanta Union Mission, and the Marine Corps. “Toys for Tots” campaign. We have decided to create a new blog post for “Good Deeds of the Week” that will spotlight some of the great things that we are doing not only at Christmastime, but all throughout the year.

Recently one of our employees, Ann Dobbertine, was touring the Atlanta Union Mission on behalf of our non-profit organization Paradise Empowers. During the tour Ann met a woman called “Lady T” who is the owner of Lady T’s Catering here in Atlanta. It turns out that Lady T is also known as “Atlanta’s own Mother Teresa” since she feeds over 500 homeless people each month. Ann heard stories of a number of homeless families which were in need of blankets, shoes, and warm clothes and reached out via social media networks to mobilize her friends, and co-workers to facilitate donations. We’ll be delivering our second load of donated goods tomorrow and will continue to offer our assistance to Lady T in helping those who are less fortunate. Many thanks go out to our customers for allowing us to serve them, and in turn, making it possible for us to serve the community. Also, many thanks go out to Ann Dobbertine and her network of friends for taking action to warm the homeless.