Habitat for Humanity Micro Brew Ha-Ha

For the past 25 years, Habitat for Humanity of Omaha has been an organization committed to "building homes and building lives through the partnership of our community's spiritual and material resources." Through the development of safe, affordable housing based on a no-interest, no-profit mortgage model, Habitat seeks to eliminate poverty housing and provide opportunities for median-income families to achieve the dream of homeownership.

During the month of September, Giving Back would like to support Habitat for Humanity & their Third Annual Micro Brew Ha-Ha on Thursday, September 17th.

This outdoor event on the Lewis & Clark Landing will offer delicious food and beer tasting from local microbreweries and restaurants in a casual and festive atmosphere. Relax with friends and enjoy some of the best food and beer the area has to offer! A silent auction will feature work from local artists and proceeds from the entire evening will benefit Habitat for Humanity of Omaha.

Emily had so much fun volunteering for the event last year, that this year she signed up for a committee... she is on the Food Donations Committee & has been hard at work to make this years event a success! Here is how you can help... click on this --> volunteer link and sign up for a "duty" and time that works best for you! (The nice thing is that you can see the names of who else has already signed up & you can chose what interests you most!)

If you are unable to volunteer, or just need a night off to enjoy music, food and a drink or two... click here for the Micro Brew Ha Ha website and buy your tickets today!

Ronald McDonald House

August's project will be all about supporting the Ronald McDonald House Charities!

First, start collecting those Pop Tabs!

Your Aluminum can tabs go a long way with Ronald McDonald House Charities in Omaha. Those tabs, when recycled, help defray the operational costs. The seemingly insignificant tab you use to open your soft drink is important to Ronald McDonald House. Last year, they recycled an estimated 35 million pop tabs. These tabs came from school children, businesses, community organizations & people just like you!

If you already have pop tabs to donate, Giving Back will be bringing a donation on August 19th...which brings us to the 2nd part! Serving Dinner!

Second, we will be serving dinner at the Ronald McDonald House on Wednesday, August 19th at 6pm.

They only allow 8 volunteers to come in at a time (there are already 20-30 people there, so we don't want to overwhelm them) but there are many ways to help...We need people to: purchase groceries, prepare the meal & then serve the food.

Please email me at karla_bates@hotmail.com or comment on this blog if you can help!

Here are some FUN FACTS about Pop Tabs:

• One pound of tabs is about 1,500 tabs
• Each tab measures about 1 inch, so when placed end to end, there are 12 tabs in a foot & 40 in a meter
• To reach a mile, when placing tabs end to end, it would take 63,360
• 1 million tabs end to end would stretch 16.75 miles

Remember, start saving those pop tabs! Giving Back will be going back to serve dinner again in November & we will take another donation then!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!

The Blood Drive could NOT have gone any better! We want to thank everyone for their volunteer work, donating & to thank you to EnSite for hosting & accommodating the chaos! We had 47 people showing to donate, which resulted in 38 pints. Most amazing is that we had 19 first-time donors!


The Red Cross was grateful & impressed with how smooth everything went - from recruiting, to set-up, to all the donors being on time & ready to donate. They called the morning of to ask for any advice on how to get donors (we filled our spots in less than 3 weeks - they couldn't believe it!) And they called afterwards to ask if Giving Back would be willing to do this twice a year!


So again, thank you! The inspiration for this was my amazing aunt Kim & the battle she had fought for the last 3 years with that ugly disease cancer. It was an amazing show of support for her & all our other family & friends that rely on these donations.

More pictures to come...