This weeks blog is written by Mary Yates, past Families First Board Chair and current Board member. Mary is also this year’s Co-Chair of Families First’s Dining for a Difference event.

Sometimes life comes bearing gifts from unexpected sources. When my husband Charlie and I agreed to co-chair the 2010 Dining for a Difference with Lou and Blanton Winship, I must admit to some ambivalence. It had been 30 years since I’d chaired a non-profit event, and I was not at all sure it would be enjoyable. Especially given that the fundraising aspect was likely to be extremely difficult in the midst of the recession. However, Kim Anderson, the new CEO of Families First, is among the people I admire most, and is providing energizing, creative leadership at Families First, and Barbara Richardson, the Chief Development Officer, who would be the primary staff leader for the Dinner, is a delight. I knew when they asked that it would be on mine and Charlie’s project list for 2009/10. 

Lou Winship, another Board member, and I agreed that our number one objective for the Dinner–OK, after fundraising, which has to be at the top of the list in this economy–was to communicate to our guests some of the ways Families First goes about accomplishing its mission: to ensure the success of children in jeopardy by empowering families. For such a complex agency that delivers many solutions to children and families, that is no small undertaking.

The first task was to decide on a speaker. Many ideas were presented. One Committee member’s suggestion of “The Blind Side” family from Memphis, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy, caught fire and we began to work very hard in August on getting them to come.  There was much celebrating when they agreed to be our featured speakers a month or so before the movie was released.Valerie Jackson, the very talented host of the public radio interview show “Between the Lines” also agreed to interview them onstage at the Dinner.
The Tuohy’s dramatically inspiring story is ideal to help communicate the need for Families First’s work in supporting children in jeopardy in our community.

Families First’s participation in last year’s Raise Me Up campaign sponsored by Casey Family Programs and Georgia’s Department of Human Services was the perfect lead in to encouraging Dining for a Difference guests to “raise their hand” to help us support children in foster care. It is our hope that everyone who attends Dining for a Difference will leave the event ready to raise their hand in some way to support children in our community.  

Dining for a Difference’s focus on those served by Families First also involves a couple of young men from our foster care programs, including one of Lou’s mentees, who will serve as our backstage MC. Giving our invocation will be a very gifted athlete (like Michael Oher in The Blind Side) who loves to write and speak. We look forward to hearing him!

We also will introduce 2010 Humanitarian Award recipients, John and Polly Lewis. The Lewises have been foster parents with Families First for over 30 years. She is 84 and he is 90. They have told us proud stories about some of their many foster children, including those who went on to college, and they speak lovingly of the two teen girls whom they currently foster. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis exemplify selflessness, love and wisdom and have demonstrated over and over the transformative effects of structure, security and love. Looking energetic, happy and healthy, they also exemplify the gifts given to them by the children they have lifted up. I’m sure I’ll never forget meeting them and hearing their story. 

I now count among my life’s gifts the opportunity to know the Lewises, and the inspiration of the enthusiasm of all Families First staff, Board and Committee members working to create an evening that speaks of the gifts that come to us when we raise a hand and say we’ll help to make solutions possible for Georgia’s children in foster care.  You can be part of the solution and make a difference too by attending Families First’s Dining for a Difference, making an online donation, or getting involved with one of the many volunteer opportunities.
 

This week’s blog is written by Barbara Richardson, Chief Development Officer at Families First.

Last summer, when we started talking about inviting Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy to be our special guests at the 2010 Dining for a Difference, I was a little worried. We knew that they had a compelling story to tell and that it related to the work that we do at Families First to help provide children with permanent, supportive, loving relationships with the adults in their lives. We also knew the movie version of the story was being filmed in Atlanta, which gave it the hometown connection that we thought might help sell tickets (and boy has it!). But I was worried about the Hollywood factor. I was thinking, what if the movie flops? What if no one wants to see it? What if it’s “too Hollywood” and the story fails to ring true. Luckily, those worries were in vain.

If you haven’t seen the movie, you should. And read the book too. If you do both, you will in fact see that the movie version is a bit “Hollywood.” It’s a Cinderella story. But if you look deep you’ll find several messages we can all take from Hollywood into our own neighborhoods.      

There is a message about compassion. The Tuohy family saw Michael Oher as a child in need, and recognized that they were in a position to help. They could have looked the other way, as so many of us do, but they chose to reach out their hands to lift him up.

There is a message about humanity. Despite their different worlds, divided by race and privilege, the Tuohy’s and Michael saw each other as people first. They focused on each other, they loved each other, they called each other family, with little regard to their differences or what other people might think.

There’s a message about perseverance. It has been said that the movie character Michael was “dumbed down” for dramatic effect. The real Michael is an intelligent young man who was determined to break free from the destiny shaped by the circumstances of his birth and upbringing. He knew that the Tuohys were giving him a shot at a different life and he made the decision to do the work to succeed in school, on the football field, and in life.

Because of the success of the movie, interest in seeing the “real” Tuohys at Families First’s Dining for a Difference on March 18th has been phenomenal. We’ve moved the event to a larger venue, The Cobb Galleria Centre, where we can accommodate up to 800 guests. Dining for a Difference is Families First’s only fundraising event, netting up to $250,000 in previous years. We are so grateful that all of the stars aligned to pave the way for an incredible evening on March 18th – the success of the movie at the box office, Sandra Bullock’s stellar portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy, the hometown connection to Atlanta, Michael’s success in his first season with the Baltimore Ravens, and, of course, the inspiring and compelling story of the Tuohys and Michael Oher. Hollywood couldn’t have written a better script. .     

For more information and to purchase tickets to Dining for a Difference, click here.