Stimulate Columbia MO Press Conference

We kicked off our Stimulate Columbia project yesterday with a press conference held at Harbor House. I have posted some photos from the press conference as well as a transcript of my opening remarks below. We're excited about bringing some great local non-profit groups together that already do a great job of helping people in our city. Our goal is to stimulate our local economy by investing our money in people who just need a little help. By helping get these people to a place where they can be self-sufficient will help our economy in the long-term as they become contributing members of society.

KOMU came to the press conference and they did a great job of getting the message out to the city. You can see their report here.

Here are my opening remarks from the press conference:

Good morning, and welcome to the kick off of the Stimulate Columbia Project.  My name is Tom Seagraves. A couple of months ago, President Obama spoke these words at his inauguration:

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility...(one) that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task."

This new era of responsibility that President Obama spoke of is one we should take seriously as citizens of a nation that is made great, not by a government, but by its people.  This responsibility should begin in our homes as we raise our children to be people of character.  And from there it should be focused locally as we reach out together to help people in need.  Helping people in need is the root of our project, and we believe that by helping people in need, right here in Columbia, we can stimulate our local economy for the long-term.   

As one of the organizers of the Stimulate Columbia project, I speak for all of us when I tell you that we are passionate about loving our city and we only want the best for it.  That’s why we hand-picked a few local organizations that already do a great job of helping people right here in Columbia.  We thought that by bringing them together, they could help and influence more people. These non-profit charities that we have chosen focus on three very important groups of people: at-risk youth, low-income families and unemployed workers.

We already know that Columbia is a giving and generous place to live.  A recent survey done by the Voluntary Action Center found the following:

116 local agencies said that 90,324 people volunteered in Columbia last year.  Those people gave over 2.7 million hours.  Had these agencies had to pay for those hours the cost would have been over $53 million.

As amazing as those facts are, there is still more work to be done, and there are still people here in Columbia who are sitting on the sidelines who need to get into the game. 

Allow me to share the vision that the organizers of Stimulate Columbia have put together:

These unprecedented times have citizens and politicians alike searching far and wide for ideas to save our economy.  The government, for months, has been wrestling with how to spend our money, and in the mean time, people are losing jobs, families are running out of money, and the next generation is losing hope.

Instead of waiting for Washington or Jefferson City, organizations across Columbia are banding together, working to save more than the economy; working to save our community.

As local layoffs increase, we’re giving our money freely to non-profit groups who work to rehabilitate those who have lost their jobs.

As low-income parents struggle to provide for their children, we’re giving money freely to local charities who work to make sure no one is left without the bare necessities of life.

And for those in the next generation, our children, who are losing hope, we’re giving our money freely to organizations who work with at-risk youth.

We believe the answer is not government; it’s small communities of people banding together to take care of their own.  People like you and me right here in Columbia.  We are responsible for our city, so let’s take this burden together and help lighten the load that many are now carrying.

I challenge every citizen in Columbia to give in one of three ways in the next 30 days:

1.  Plan to give a portion, or all of your tax refund to one of our partner organizations.

2.  Give 10% of your next paycheck, or your next 2 paychecks, to one of our partner organizations.

3.  Give some of your time to one of our partner organizations.

We have set up a website where you can easily learn more about our partners, and also donate to them directly.  The website address is stimulatecolumbiamo.org.

We are also hosting the Stimulate Columbia MO Expo, this Saturday, March 14th from 9am to 1pm at the Cherry Street Artisan in downtown Columbia.  The Artisan is located on the corner of 9^th and Cherry.  This will be an opportunity for Columbia residents to meet our partners face to face and ask them directly, “How will a donation to your organization stimulate the Columbia economy.”

One thing I can tell you with certainty; the people standing before you this morning love this city and the people in it.  They work hard every day to make a difference here.  They only want the best for the people they help and their goal is to help change these peoples’ lives so they can move on and be contributing members of our community.

Each one of our partners will now take a couple of minutes and give you a brief overview of how a donation to their agency will stimulate the Columbia economy.

Stimulate Columbia Goes Live This Week

After much planning and many changes, we're going live this week with the Stimulate Columbia MO project. Our partners are ready and so is the media, so Wednesday at 9am we will kick the project off with a press conference at the Harbor House, one of our partner locations. The press release went out on Thursday, and on Friday I had a few calls and pre-press conference interviews on the phone. So far the media is reacting well and I think we will have a strong presence there for the event. 

The website is almost complete. Chad will be putting a few final touches on it this afternoon. Take a look and see what you think.

On Saturday from 9 to 1 we will be having a Stimulate Columbia MO Expo at the Cherry Street Artisan in downtown Columbia. This will give the public an opportunity to meet our partners. The partners will be able to tell people exactly how a donation to their organization will stimulate our local economy.

So come out on Saturday and support your community and stimulate the local economy by grabbing a hot cup of coffee and by giving some of your time and money to some great local charities.

Stimulate Columbia MO Partnerships Finalized

We're down to the wire on the planning of Stimulate Columbia MO. We have made contact, interviewed, and approved our partners for the project. They are as follows:

At-Risk Youth:

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central MO

Rainbow House

The Intersection

Low-Income Families:

Voluntary Action Center

Central MO Food Bank

Love INC.

The Unemployed:

Harbor House

Boone County Community Partnership/Re-entry Program

Salvation Army

Our website will be live by the end of the week. Now we just need congress and President-Elect Obama to follow-through on their promise of the economic stimulus package. Our media campaign will begin as soon as the announcement is made that the bill has been passed through congress.

Ben Stein's Answer To The Bad Economy

Ben Stein is someone I admire and respect.  He is a great conservative thinker and uses logic in his commentaries. You may remember him from his role in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (Bueller, Beuller). But, that's not all he's done. He was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and he was part of Reagan's economic team for a while. He also put out a movie recently that I highly recommend. It's titled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. It was released on DVD a couple of weeks ago. He recently had a commentary on CBS Sunday Morning which I thought was great. You can read it here. In the second to the last paragraph he talks about stimulating the economy by donating money to charity. This is exactly what we want to do with Stimulate Columbia MO. WE can help get the economy going by donating money locally. Government is not the answer. I think if Ben knew about the little project we had going on, he would get behind it. 

Introducing......

StimulateColumbiaMO.org

No, the website isn't up yet, but it will be.  So, what is it?  A few weeks ago Rob Gaskin and I were discussing the next stimulus package that congress has been talking about giving us.  We both agreed that we are against another stimulus check, but since you can't opt out of getting it our thought was we should just give it away.  Then we started taking the idea a little further.  What if we started some kind of organization that would direct people to give their money to local charities and invest in our community.  Instead of going to Best Buy and getting that TV you don't really need, what if you took your money and gave it to an organization that would truly keep the money local.  Here's an example:

You donate your money to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central MO which is based here in Columbia. They take the money and recruit more mentors for local kids.  A kid that is mentored through their program has a greater chance of staying in school and doing something with their life.  So, with that kid staying in school, the school gets funding from the federal government for that kid. So that's more money coming in to the local economy.  Also, when the kid gets older he/she gets a job and pays taxes which is more money in the local economy.  It also is a chance for that kid to not be on welfare, which is then less of a burden on us.

When you buy that TV the money may be spent locally, but then it's gone, never to be seen again.  By giving your money locally it could have long-term effects on our local economy.

So, we have decided to focus on three groups of people:  at-risk children/youth, low-income families, and the unemployed.  Our idea is to have 3 or 4 local charities for each of these categories that we can focus peoples' giving to.  This way a larger impact can be made by focusing on just a few charities.  We are currently in the process of putting all this together.  We have recruited some help from several people at Karis Community Church and a few others.  We are currently building the website, crafting a vision statement, choosing and interviewing local charities, and building an advertising campaign.  Our goal is to be up and running on January 5th.  We want to be ready when the announcement comes from congress that the bill has been approved.  The goal of congress is to have the bill ready for President-elect Obama to sign on inauguration day.  When the announcement is made that the stimulus is official we have to have the campaign ready to go, as people will spend that money in their heads when the announcement is made.  

We are excited and we have a lot of work to do, but we feel like this can make a huge impact on our local economy and our community.  Assuming that we get $600 each again, if 10,000 people donate half of that here in Columbia, we would have $3,000,000!    It can happen!

So, what do you think?  Are you willing to help?  Do you have any ideas for local charities we should consider?  Any feedback you have would be appreciated.