For the second consecutive year, Dallas-area studio owners Matt and Angie Weedon were the top individual donors to PPA Charities with a total contribution of $9,600. In addition to providing support and sponsorship for other PPA Charities activities in 2010, a contribution of $10,000 made White House Custom Colour the year’s top corporate donor. View the entire 2010 donor list by clicking here.
                
Angie and Matt Weedon are owners of Angela Weedon Photography in Garland, Texas, and Angie recently concluded her service as a member of the Board of Trustees of PPA Charities. In four of the past six years, Angie and Matt have topped all individual donations to Operation Smile. Their total contributions during that period is an astonishing $37,500! Most of these funds were raised through studio activities, including the sale of “Smile Cards.” You can read more about the Weedon’s success in fundraising by clicking here. Visit their website by clicking here.

Thank you Matt and Angie and WHCC!!

During the Awards Ceremony at PPA’s ImagingUSA, PPA Charities President Mary Fisk-Taylor received The PPA Charities Legacy Award, which recognizes “outstanding service and commitment to PPA Charities and philanthropic endeavors.” The award was presented by PPA Charities Executive Director Bert Behnke, himself a winner of the Legacy Award. Mary has served as PPACH president since 2005.

For the second straight year, annual donations to PPA Charities from members and friends have allowed PPA Charities Trustees to allocate a gift of $100,000 to its charitable partner, Operation Smile. The contribution was presented at the PPA Charities Celebration gala on January 15, in San Antonio.

It takes only $240 to repair the smile of a child because the medical professionals and staff who provide these life-changing operations volunteer their services to Operation Smile. To date, PPA Charities has raised a total of $350,000 for Operation Smile. That translates into nearly 1500 smiles that have been saved through the generosity of PPA members and friends.

A very large THANK YOU goes out to Jennifer Jamieson of San Francisco on a recent donation of $10,000 to PPA Charities. The donation came from the Jamieson Foundation in San Francisco, founded in 1984 by her grandfather. The family business has been in sand and gravel since 1903, and was prominent in much of the rebuilding of San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake.

Jennifer graduated from Santa Clara University in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and earned her masters degree in business administration from the University of San Francisco. After working as an Enterprise Account Manager at Wyse Technology in San Jose and an Account Manager for Microsoft, Jennifer decided to follow her dream to become a professional photographer, opening her studio in 2009.

“I became excited about PPA Charities after spending time with Britney Fullgraf at the PPA Charities booth in Nashville and attending the Charitable Marketing classes presented by Sandy Puc and Vicki Taufer. I love the integration of the passion of photography and what we do to make people’s lives brighter with our talents. I am excited about our role with Operation Smile and helping those less fortunate and blessed to be a part of such a wonderful experience.”

…and PPA Charities is blessed to have Jennifer Jamieson. Thank you Jennifer for your generosity!

Houston Photographer Cindy Crofford is one of several hundred PPA-member photographers throughout the U.S. and in Australia who have launched fund-raising campaigns in support of Operation Smile. Cindy, who is a longstanding participant in Family Portrait Month, and who was one of the first PPA studios to become a PPA Charities Operation Smile Studio, recently experienced a tangible reminder of the importance of the mission supported by Operation Smile.

Not long ago Cindy photographed a portrait session for a very special mom and daughter. Michelle has been a mom to her adopted two-year-old daughter Lily for only a few months when they came for the portrait session, but she and her husband have been in Lily’s life since the day she came to live in the Chinese orphanage where the family had registered for adoption. The abandoned baby girl had been born with a cleft lip/palate, and Michelle and her husband Brandon provided financial support for corrective surgery for the baby, who has blossomed into a beautiful toddler who will enjoy a normal life because of the gift of surgery.

“Seeing Lily, and knowing how different her life would have been without the support of her new family,” said Cindy, “really drove home how important it is to support an organization such as Operation Smile.”

This year Cindy advertised Family Portrait Month through a post card sent to her clients, the front of which is pictured above. The back copy side of the card is shown below.


Cindy recently produced a 12-page 6”x9” family portrait booklet that includes this page devoted to the studio’s support of Operation Smile:


A page on Cindy’s website also advertises Family Portrait Month to site visitors.

Thanks to Cindy and to all those who are raising funds for Operation Smile through PPA Charities!

With less than three months left in its 2010 fund-raising campaign, PPA members need to contribute approximately $78,311 if PPA Charities is to reach its $120,000 goal in support of its charitable partner Operation Smile. During 2009, PPA members contributed a record $100,000 to Operation Smile, and if this year's goal is met, then PPA members will have made it possible for as many as 500 children to receive the gift of life-changing surgery provided by the volunteer medical staff of Operation Smile.

Fortunately, PPA members will have plenty of opportunities to help: Funds can be raised through Family Portrait Month activities during October and November, and on November 1, the 2011 PPA Charities Operation Smile Studio campaign will begin; 7 studios have already registered to be PPACH Operation Smile Studios for 2011, so we hope you will be among the first to join them by donating at least $240 to PPA Charities!

Several individuals and companies have just announced plans to support Operation Smile through their special fund raising activities. For example, well-known Orlando, Florida, portrait photographer and teacher Tim Kelly is preparing to launch a event that will allow donors to encourage Tim to cut his currently long "artistic" hair to more of a "corporate" look. Tim hopes to raise $10,000 through this good-grooming effort.

Springfield, Illinois, photographer and marketing guru Sarah Petty is “cooking up” some fund-raising recipes that she will announce soon through her Joy of Marketing organization. Last year, Sarah raised a remarkable $24,000 for Operation Smile through her Joy to the World websummit.

So please join with us in showing the world what committed professional photographers can achieve when they stand together to make a difference in the lives of precious children whose lives can be changed forever through the gift of surgery.

Thanks to the ingenuity, support and generosity of the directors, instructors and students of the 2010 Texas School, PPA Charities succeeded in raising $24,000 for our charitable partner, Operation Smile, far surpassing last year’s outstanding Texas School donation of $17,000.

How It All Got Started . . .

Texas School is the largest of all PPA Affiliate Schools in the country, and this year the week-long event drew over 1,000 students from throughout the U.S. and abroad. The tradition of PPA Charities fundraising at Texas School began spontaneously in 2008, when a few instructors, who were familiar with PPACH’s support Operation Smile, encouraged their class members to donate. This effort culminated at the Thursday evening all-school party when school director Don Dixon offered to shave his head if the donation could grow to $5000. It did, and Don lost his hair!

In 2009, Texas School instructors encouraged their classes to buy as many smiles as they could by playing an Operation Smile video so that students could learn how this organization’s incredible volunteers can perform life-changing surgery for a desperately needy child for only $240. Jed and Vicki Taufer’s class alone donated an amazing $7,300 for individual contributions and auctions of merchandise and private classes by Jed and Vicki. Their donation, along with those from other classes, along with an impromptu auction of donated vendor items, resulted in a $17,000 contribution to Operation Smile!

A Texas School Tradition

With the 2009 donation, which represents 70 smiles, two years of impromptu acts of generosity at Texas School toward PPA Charities have created what is now a Texas School tradition! So for 2010, each class was challenged to help PPA Charities by raising enough so that we could donate at least two smiles ($480) to Operation Smile. With 33 classes at the school, we hoped to come close to the 2009 donation of $17,000. To generate additional excitement, PPACH offered a full Texas School scholarship to be given out to a member of the class that raised the most, as well as a scholarship to “Chicks Who Click” for every $1000 raised by each class.

100 Smiles for 2010!

We were amazed and astounded at the effort some of the classes made; only a few raised less than $100, and, remarkably, Helen Yancy’s class raised $4,000 by holding a raffle for a fine art print created by Richard Sturdevant, shown at left (see Richard’s fabulous print up close on the homepage of his website). Most attendees were involved at some point, which made it fun for Texas School and very rewarding for PPACH. In the end, we raised over $24,000 . . . 100 smiles!


PPACH Executive Director Bert Behnke was on hand at the school’s trade show so that he could provide information on PPACH and PPA to attendees.

Thanks to Texas School for their incredible leadership on behalf of PPA Charities; we can’t wait for the 2011 edition of Texas School, which will be held in Dallas on May 1-6, 2011! For information on Texas School, click here.

When Laurie Weaver packs her cameras to leave on an Operation Smile mission later this year, it won’t be the first time that she has used photography to spread the word about important charitable causes. In fact it wasn’t until 2007, when Laurie was asked by a friend to photograph the local Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, that she was forced to acknowledge her secret desire to become a professional photographer. “I nervously showed up at the media tent with three times as much gear as I needed hanging from my body, wearing some really cute sneakers,” she explains. “Twenty thousand runners and walkers later my photographs were moving across the Jumbotron screen, and I was hooked.”

Her new photography career was quite a change from her former life, which had been spent as an architecture student and then an architectural design engineer at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I always had a camera nearby and stuck my nose in the activity of any photographer I saw,” she recalls. “I was especially impressed by the photographers on NASA’s zero-gravity plane who could shoot and film while floating inside the cabin of a KC-135 aircraft.”

Today, Laurie’s feet are planted firmly on the ground in her Austin studio. Her photography style aptly represents the sentiment she expressed on the home page of her website: “A memory is a painting dabbed with streaks of intense light and color; yet empty without the softer, muted tones of everyday life.” Little did PPACH know how lucky Operation Smile would be when Laurie’s name was drawn from the hundreds of photographers who qualified for the mission opportunity by donating to Operation Smile in 2009; in only a few words, she tells visitors to her website all they need to know about her motivation as a photographer and why she is so well-suited to document an Operation Smile mission:

I love imagery and movement,
the complexity of light,
and the
brief sparkle of a connection.
People are intriguing,
their potential energy, amazing.

I have degrees in Architecture &
Extreme Environmental Design.
I love my 3 kids,
and they make me crazy.
I played at being a writer,
tumbled down ski slopes
& ran marathons.
I am in love with my
high school sweetheart.
I designed space habitats at
NASA and believed in dreams.

Photography has been my
passion throughout.

You can visit Laurie’s website by clicking here.

In each of the five years since PPA Charities named Operation Smile to be it's charitable partner, PPA members have increased their donations. For 2010 the PPACH Trustees have established a record-setting goal of $120,000 to be raised through activities in direct support of Operation Smile. This goal represents a $50,000 increase over the 2009 goal of $70,000! PPA Charities President Mary Fisk-Taylor explains: 

"Last year represented an amazing turning point in our fundraising activities for PPA Charities. Because so many caring photographers and industry vendors recognized what could be accomplished for Operation Smile when we all stand together, we topped our $70,000 goal by $30,000! This allowed us to present Operation Smile with a check for $100,000 at our PPACH Celebration at ImagingUSA in January. This means that the smiles of more than 400 children will be saved through of the generosity of our industry.

"Because of this outstanding performance in 2009, the PPACH Trustees feel confident that our goal of $120,000 can be reached in 2010. Just imagine how we will feel about our great industry if this time next year we know that the lives of 500 children will be changed forever because more and more photographers participated in this great effort! It is within our reach if we start our fundraising efforts now, and if we spread the word about what we are doing to our industry colleagues! 

"Thank you again for opening your hearts to children around the world and to the fabulous volunteer professionals at Operation Smile. Take a moment now to mark your 2011 calendar so that you can take part in the PPA Charities Celebration on the evening of Saturday, January 15, at Imaging USA in San Antonio!"

To learn how you can support Operation Smile, click here.

Sarah Petty is joining with PPA Charities to raise funds for its charitable partner Operation Smile at her December 28 Joy of Marketing Websummit! The webcast will feature 14 hours of FREE education from 28 of the industry's top photographers, during which you can join together with fellow photographers from coast to coast to donate (even a dollar) to give the gift of cleft lip or cleft palate surgery to deserving children.

Over 10,000 professional photographers registered for Sarah's Master Photographers Free Marketing Telesummit in September. Sarah expects an even bigger audience for this great marketing event, which will help you jump start your business for 2010, so she's set a goal to save the smiles of 100 children ($24,000) through Operation Smile! It takes only $240 for Operation Smile's volunteer medical professionals to change the life of a child forever. What better way for photographers to give back to children in need!

What's more, The Joy of Marketing will match
Websummit donations up to $5,000!

So get off to a strong start in the New Year and help some deserving children while you do! You'll learn from David Jay, Sam Puc, Julia Woods, Jerry Ghionis, Scott Crosby, Will Crockett and more! The Joy to the World Websummit promises to provide you with serious money-making ideas for your business.

All you need is a computer with an Internet connection to join in on December 28 (and the latest version of Adobe Flash - it's free, too). The Websummit will be available for 24 hours beginning at 12:01 CST on December 28. Listen to only those speakers you like best or watch all 28. You can start, stop and pause each speakers' presentation to learn at your leisure within the 24 hour window. Simply REGISTER NOW for FREE by clicking here!

If you're not available on December 28, 2009 or want to get a head start on 2010 planning for your business, you can purchase the Adobe FLASH files of all 14 hours for $89 and receive access to the speaker presentations IMMEDIATELY. A pre-websummit special price of $59 is available until December 27. Just register before December 28, 2009, and you'll receive this special offer! To learn more about Sarah Petty's Joy of Marketing Websummit, click here.

Huge thanks to Sarah for her generosity in partnering with
PPA Charities in support of Operation Smile!

In each of the four years since PPA Charities named Operation Smile to be it's charitable partner, PPA members have increased their donations to the charity. This year, the PPACH trustees have set the ambitious goal of $70,000 to be raised through Family Portrait Month and other activities in direct support of Operation Smile. This goal represents a $20,000 increase over the 2008 donation of $50,000, but more importantly, it will make possible nearly 300 smiles repaired by the volunteer professionals of Operation Smile. Together PPA member trulys can make these miracles happen . . . one smile at a time. To learn how you can participate, click here.

Last October, nearly 350 members of Professional Photographers of America (PPA) in 41 states and the District of Columbia participated in PPA Charities' Family Portrait Month, a, national fundraising effort to benefit Operation Smile, making possible a donation of $50,635 to the charitable partner of PPA Charities. This donation raises the amount that PPA Charities has contributed to children's charities to more than $150,000.

On January 10, during PPA's Imaging USA convention in Phoenix, Arizona, PPA Charities presented the 2008 donation to Operation Smile at Alice Cooperstown. The check was received by Beth Marshall, Operation Smile Senior Executive Advisor for Latin America and Caribbean, and Carmit Bachar, Operation Smile Celebrity Smile Ambassador. Bachar, an American singer and dancer, is best known as a member of the pop group, The Pussycat Dolls. Ms. Bachar, who was born with a cleft lip and cleft palate, participated on an Operation Smile medical mission to Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

PPA Charities' over $50,000 donation occurred during a time when many were toning down their charitable donations. In fact, during a four-year partnership, PPA Charities has raised more than $150,000 for Operation Smile...translating into helping hundreds of children and young adults.

PPA photographer Graham Wilson of Colorado was the largest donor to Operation Smile through the 2008 Family Portrait Month campaign, raising $10,000. By generating the largest donation during Family Portrait Month, Wilson won the chance to photograph an upcoming Operation Smile international medical mission.

Operation Smile has posted an item about PPA Charities' efforts on their website; you can read it by clicking here.