Back to School Book Giveaway

Come join us

this Saturday,

August 2nd

for our 2nd annual J.A. Book Giveaway during

Warren County School System's Back-to-School Kickoff

at Three Star Mall from 9am until noon.

Through this project, we are able to distribute hundreds of books to children from all over the community. Each child that visits our booth can pick out one book that they like to take home with them.

Last year, for our first time around, we collected and distributed over 300 books free to kids who came by our booth at the event...this year we have over 1,000 to give away!

We see this as an opportunity for the kids to pick out books that they would like to read...not just a book that they've been assigned to read. We hope that through this project we are able to encourage kids to learn to love reading...and maybe give them an appreciation for charity and giving along the way.

We'll see you there!

Also check us out in today's Southern Standard on page 5-A for the story about our book giveaway!

County Wide PJ Day

This whole town has been hit hard with the news of so many of our kids having been diagnosed with cancer. We love to support the American Cancer Society and Vanderbilt Children's Hospital whenever we can, but since kids are our "thing", we wanted to do something to help out those kids in our community and their families with their day-to-day needs - gas to and from Vandy, eating out, bills, etc. etc. etc.

This idea to raise and distribute money to local families battling cancer was presented at a meeting several months ago and all of us wanted to help so we began brainstorming.

Jamie Lorance came up with the idea to raise money by sponsoring a pajama day for all of the schools. Each child, teacher or school staff member who wanted to participate and wear their pajamas to school on that day only had to make a donation to the fundraiser.

On Friday, May 8th, the plan went into action! The schools that participated were Bobby Ray, West Elementary, Eastside, Centertown, Morrison and Covenant Academy.

$996.00 was raised for the cause!

This was a great opportunity, not only to raise the money for a great cause, but to talk to the students about giving and about really making a difference in the community and the world. Kids really get a kick out of getting to help out others, especially other kids, when given the chance...so this was the perfect project to really get them involved!

Thank you to EVERYONE who participated! To all of the kids who wanted to help and gave change from their pockets, to all the parents who sent money from home, to the teachers and school staff who gave what they could...

THANK YOU THANK YOU!

A special thanks goes out to all of the teachers for taking care of the donations and organizing of their individual classes; especially to Monty Childers at Morrison, Stephanie George at Eastside, Natalie Miller at West, and Pam Gross at Covenant Academy. Also thank you to all of the principals for allowing us to do this project at your schools.

We've gotten the chance to give out some of the money already and it is such a blessing to be able to help out a family with at least some of their financial burdens. We will continue to raise money for this fund throughout the year so that we can keep it replenished and be able to give monetary help when it is needed the most. Watch the blog for details about this fund and the projects we have planned to continue raising money for it.

Jaime, way to go! Congrats on the success of this project!

Back to School Kickoff and J.A. Book Giveaway

A note from Kristy:

I hope everyone is having a GREAT summer!

It has been confirmed that Warren County School System's "Back to School Kick Off"
will be held this Saturday, August 2nd
from 9 am-12 pm at Three Star Mall.

We have over 1,000 books to give away this year!

We'll be handing the books out to the children who come to our booth at the Back to School Kickoff and we need several members to work the booth to make sure that everyone who visits the booth gets some individual attention.
If you are available to work, please let me know ASAP.

Schedule:
8am - 9am Set up
9am - 12pm Hand out books
12pm - ? Pack up and tear down (this shouldn't take long)
Please let me know if you can work and for how long.

This project is an easy way to receive hours and it's fun!

I'll be emailing everyone with details about the event as I hear them and about the location of our booth.

Thanks for your help!

P.S. It's not too late to bring in or collect books for this giveaway! Contact Kristy if you have any age-appropriate books for children and/or young adults to add to our supply or bring them to the Junior Auxiliary booth on August 2nd to Three Star Mall.

Provisional Applications

A Note From Brooke:

Just a reminder that it is time for provisional applications to be getting out.

We've already had a great response this year so I'm really excited about this year's provisional class!

I will need all applications turned to me by the August chapter meeting. If anyone needs an application just call or email me and I'll get one to you.

Also remember that each member is only allowed to propose two names so if anyone has invited more than two women to apply for membership, just make sure that you ask around and find someone who isn't over their limit to propose them (this is a NAJA rule).

I hope everyone is having a great summer and I'll see ya in August!

Thanks!

P.S. If you are not a member of Junior Auxiliary of McMinnville and would like to know more about becoming a member; Brooke is the woman you need to talk to. Feel free to contact us at jamcminnville@yahoo.com or Brooke personally at jbtotherow@yahoo.com.

Congratulations Yankee Doodle Winners!

Our Yankee Doodle Parade winners were listed today in the Southern Standard on the front page of the Lifestyles section. A couple of our adorable winners, Brownie Johnson and Kataen Shockley, even had their pictures featured on the page!

Go pick up a newspaper or check them out online at http://www.southernstandard.com/. Go into the archives and it will be listed on July 9th.

Thanks, once again, to all who participated in the parade this year! We'll see you next year!

Happy 200th Warren County!

All four of our princesses were in the Bicentennial Parade on Saturday.

Junior Miss Warren County Caitlin McClain, J.A. Little Sister Merissa Chapman, Miss Snow Princess Madison Taylor, and Little Miss Snow Princess Elena Holder all rode in a couple of really cool convertibles - they threw candy to the kids, waved to the crowds and charmed everyone.

President Natalie Miller and Vice President Brooke Totherow also rode along in the passenger seats of the cars making it a complete J.A. event!

Thanks to Jodi McAbee and Jeff Vance for lending us their vehicles to use in the parade.
A BIG thank you goes out also to Seth Wright with the Southern Standard for making the lovely signs for the sides of the convertibles! They really made us 'pop'!

The parade was a lot of fun...here are some pictures from the day:

I loved the sheep and the Australian shepherd! They were popular with the whole crowd!

After the parade we found a Junior Miss fan in the crowd...none other than our very own Jackie Matheney!

The Yankee Doodle Parade

This past Saturday, as a part of Warren County's Bicentennial Celebration, we hosted our annual Yankee Doodle Children's Parade. It was free to all ages up to 4th grade and we really had a great turnout this year!

Winners were as follows:

Preschool Division:
1st - Brownie Johnson
2nd - Gracie Lynn Hancock
3rd - Kataen Shockley

Kindergarten - 1st Division:
1st - Carter Cantrell
2nd - Jakob Shockley
3rd - Brianna Simmons

2nd -4th Division:
1st - Livia Brewer
2nd - Bethany Porter
3rd - Justin Menninger

Group Division:
1st - Grant & Ethan Hitchcock
2nd - A Tie - group#3:Justice Woodside, Mattie Wilson, Jake Toney, Karly Wilson
group#4:Katie Toney, J.P. Toney, Lydia Wilson, not pictured Mia Grace Cantrell
3rd - Jalyn, Noah, Hanna and Maya Mart

Here are some of the pictures from the day...

Here is a picture of our lovely judges for the event. Our three oldest princesses; Caitlin McClain - Junior Miss Warren County 2008, Merissa Chapman - J.A. Little Sister 2008, and Madison Taylor - Miss Snow Princess 2008. They did a great job...when they first showed up to do the judging they all told me something to the effect of, "How are we suppose to pick between all these cute kids?"...they all were very professional about the judging process though and I think everyone was pleased with their choices! Thanks so much for helping out ladies!

Shauna Wiley was the chair of the event. She made sure to keep us all busy and made sure the parade ran as smoothly as possible. Here is one of the very cooperative daddies during the parade! Some of our contestants not old enough to even walk yet, while other contestants chose to "ride" in the parade on a "float" pulled or pushed by a helpful parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin or other likewise helpful adult - sometimes in costume! Steve Sliger here is the husband of one of Junior Auxiliary's former presidents and current associate members - Danielle Sliger. Steve pulled their two girls, Maggie and Marlie, in a decorated wagon for the group division...doesn't he look thrilled? LOL. Here are a few details from some of the parade's "floats". The day's theme was "our roots run deep" and some of the kids decided to express that theme with their parade entry. Others celebrated our county's birthday and did "support our troops" themed entries while others decided to keep it simple with just classic red, white and blue!

Thanks to all who spent hours decorating and putting together these wonderful works of art! Thanks to the kids who wanted to be in the parade, to the parents who allowed them to be, helped them with their entry and got them to the parade on Saturday! Thank you so much to everyone who came out, participated and helped J.A. to celebrate America's and Warren County's birthday!

J.A. visits Fairview Community

I was recently asked to represent Junior Auxiliary as a judge for Fairview Community's Summer/4th of July Celebration and was asked to suggest a couple of other ladies to help me out. Our Junior Miss Warren County, Caitlin McClain, volunteered to come and so did our Parliamentarian Chair M.A. Higgs. Member Leanne Grissom is a member of Fairview's C.I.C. and she was there to help out with the pageant as well...she was actually one of the pageant's organizers and she did such a great job!

The weather was great...kind of warm, but the pageants were held inside of the community center's air conditioned auditorium...what more could we have asked? All of the kids were ADORABLE and emcee Randy England was really really funny!

Thanks so much to Fairview C.I.C. for inviting us to help out, we really had a good time!