Swimsuit and Towel Drive

It is finally March, which means that our 2nd annual statewide Swimsuit and Towel Drive has begun!

Allison and I have officially been inducted into the SSTD club- we learned how to embroider last week! As we hear stories from Micah and Susannah, this skill will come in handy over the next few months. I'm proud to say we are already well on our way to finishing our first county!

Our first of many towels to embroider!

We are excited to have requests from over 45 counties across the state! This means that we need all the help we can get with donation sites and embroiderers. If you are interested, visit our offical website. We would love for you to be involved, even if you aren't right here in Lee County. We can't wait for the kids to have their new swimsuits and towels with their name on it for the summer. It's coming up so quickly!

Glitz, Glam, and Gowns

This past weekend we hosted our first annual "Glitz, Glam, and Gowns" event! The day was absolutely perfect. We had spent hours and hours preparing, and it was absolutely worth all the work. Our girls looked beautiful, and we loved getting to spend the day pampering them!

We had about 25 high school girls from all over the state come to the event. Upon arrival, they received a goodie bag with make-up samples and walked down the red carpet to the refreshment area. We are very thankful to our volunteers, Fresh Market, Chick-fil-a, and Panera for donating snacks and drinks to the event. After visiting for a while, the girls were invited back to shop for a prom dress. We had over 210 dresses available to the girls!

All of the dresses

After trying on many dresses, the girls got to pick one to take home at no cost. The next stop on the route was the Shoe and Jewelry room. Each girl was able to pick out a pair of shoes and some jewelry to match their new dress. After that, the girls headed to the Beauty room. Here we had volunteers waiting to do their hair, make-up and nails. Our volunteers could have been professionals- they did a great job teaching the girls how to recreate their look for the special night.

A volunteer giving a manicure to one of our precious girls

When the make-overs were done, the girls were invited to put their complete outfit on. We had a wonderful photographer who took glamour shots of the girls. We will mail these out to the girls to help them remember how to create their look on the night of their dance. It was so fun to watch the girls pose and dance around. They were glowing!

One of our great volunteers helping a girl tie up her dress

Our photographer showed the girls their photos after they took them so they could see how beautiful they looked. One sweet girl looked at her photo and started to cry. She said "I've never felt this beautiful before!" Tears came to my eyes too as I watched this stunning young woman twirl around the room. Countless others gushed about how they just couldn't believe they got to take the dress home! My favorite part of the whole day was watching the girls light up as volunteer after volunteer told them how beautiful and loved they were.

That is why we did this event. Not just to provide a dress for a high school dance, but to love on them and let them know that they are beautiful children of the Creator of the Universe. We are so thankful for the opportunity to share a piece of life with these beautiful high school girls!

The ladies of BigHouse

BigHouse is Three!

Happy Belated Birthday to BigHouse!

We turned 3 last Friday. To celebrate, we threw a surprise party at our Kids' Night Out on Friday night. The party was complete with balloons, decorations, cupcakes and ice cream. The kids had a blast! We are thankful for the past three years and cannot wait to see what the coming years have in store!

Girls working together on a Valentine's Scavenger Hunt

Playing with the balloons

We are so thankful for Cornerstone allowing us to use their church!

All in all, it was a fun night!

And we are right back in the swing of things at BigHouse this week. This morning we had our very first Food Bank pick up. BigHouse has taken on Food Bank ordering and pick up for the Lee County Foster and Adoptive Parent Association. It was so exciting to see all the families coming through this morning. We are excited to serve them in this way. It was a chilly morning (BigHouse with no heat still- brr!) but it was still great to see all of the smiling faces.

Here we go!

The new year is in full swing here at BigHouse! We have many exciting things in store for the next few months, so stay tuned for all the updates. Between the Swimsuit and Towel Drive starting, summer internship applications, dance class, Food Bank, and our teen girls' event, we certainly are busy over here on Samford Avenue.

As Micah mentioned, I'm Melissa. I am one of the interns here at BigHouse for the semester. Allison, the other intern, and I have loved getting to know Micah, Susannah, and the families involved at BigHouse. We are both seniors at Auburn majoring in Human Development and Family Studies. Hopefully I'll be able to keep you up to date with all of the things happening around here!

Last night we had a restaurant night at Chappy's Deli to benefit our "Glitz, Glam, and Gowns" event. If you haven't heard about this event, we would love for you to get involved. "Glitz, Glam, and Gowns," which I like to call GGG for short, is on February 25th from 10am to 2pm at Trinity United Methodist Church. Prom is such a special event for high school girls, and we don’t want them to miss the opportunity to attend their spring dance. Our goal for this event is to have prom and semi-formal dresses, shoes, clutches, and jewelry available to the girls at no cost. Along with getting a dress, we want this event to be a fun day of pampering for the girls, with hair, make-up and nail demonstrations. We would like to encourage them throughout the process of getting ready for their special dance by having volunteers help them find a dress and prepare for the night while fellowshipping with other girls. Each girl will be offered snacks and drinks while they shop as well as a goodie-bag on the way out to help them re-create the look for their event. We are thankful for Chappy's generosity for donating the proceeds from last night's dinner to our event. If you would like to get involved with GGG, let us know! We are very excited to love on our teen girls.

As Micah mentioned, we have our Kid's Night Out coming up on Friday. We'll post some pictures and stories from our birthday celebration next week!

And we're back!

Hey Friends-

I once again apologize for the long blog abscence. I think it's safe to say regular blogging isn't my strong suit. However- we are blessed to have interns at BigHouse this semester and one has so graciously offered to help us keep our blog up to date... Thank goodness! We have A LOT of fun things coming up this spring and Melissa will be checking in frequently to keep everyone up to date with BigHouse news! I am hoping to also occasionally pop in to share as well.

This spring is shaping up to be our best yet at BigHouse. God has continued to provide for our needs and has opened the door for BigHouse to grow and change. We have been averaging 50+ kids at our Kids' Night Out events this fall and winter and look forward to more this spring. We will also celebrate our 3rd Birthday this Friday with a Kids' Night Out Birthday Party! We feel so blessed to have made it 3 years and we know God has even bigger plans for BigHouse and our families! Can't wait to see what the next the next 3 years will hold!

Thanks for reading and please check back often- I feel certain Melissa will do a MUCH better job keeping you all "in the know" at BigHouse!

Much Love!!
Micah

Incentives!

Here's a little incentive for you to collect yellow pepsi caps and box codes for BigHouse Power Voting... you can get $25 OFF any service (now or future) at Integrity Auto Service in Opelika!

We are very excited to partner with Integrity to collect LOTS AND LOTS of bonus votes! Here's the details...

• Collect Yellow Pepsi Power Vote Caps or Box Codes
• Bring 10 or more caps/codes to Integrity Auto Service- 1007 Geneva St. in Opelika
• Turn in the caps/codes and receive a $25 OFF Certificate.
• ALL Caps due on or before Friday, July 29th at 5:00pm- sorry, no exceptions.
• One per person, certificates can not be combined with any other offer/coupon.

Please take advantage of this great value AND support BigHouse at the same time! All codes are worth 5, 10, 15, 25, 50 or 100 votes each! That means 10 caps is worth a minimum of 50 votes! That is HUGE!

So collect your caps and bring em' in!

Integrity Auto Service

1007 Geneva St.

Opelika, AL 36801

(334) 749-3344

Owner- Michael Brown

www.integrityautomotive.org

-m

Rock the Vote!

We need your help!!!

BigHouse is competing for a $10,000 Pepsi Refresh Everything Grant to provide care packages to children when the enter foster care. Many times, children come into care with little to no belongings. They need everything from a toothbrush to pajamas! We want to equip local DHR's with readymade kits they can give the child as soon as they enter care. These will contain toiletries, socks, underwear, and maybe even a toy or lovey. Here's the thing... WE NEED YOUR HELP to make this happen!

There are 2 ways to vote and 2 ways to help!
VOTE:
1. log on to www.refresheverything.com/bighousefoundation and sign up to vote! You can log-in with a facebook account or email (or try both)! Once per day!
2. Text 107285 to 73774 to vote via text message! Once per day!
HELP:
1. Tell everyone you know to vote! Family, Friends, Church members, Civic Groups, Co-workers, Running buddies, Day Care workers, Your kid's friend's parents, etc. We have got to GET THE WORD OUT and you can help! Send them the info to vote or a link to this blog.
2. Collect the yellow bonus vote caps on Pepsi Products! Each code on these caps is worth 5-100 bonus votes! You can even bring them to BigHouse and we'll enter them for you! This is a great and easy way to make a huge impact!

Remember- every vote helps us get one step closer to winning the grant- Please be a part of us making life a little easier for kids in foster care!!