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| A Building of our own |
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Vaughn Occupational High School has a Culinary Arts Program which was set up by the Marriott Corporation. In the program, the students learn how to prepare meals for themselves and learn techniques that could lead to employment in the food service industry. We would like to carry that to its natural conclusion. We would like to buy a commercial building to have a bakery or catering business on the first floor, a conference room for meetings, a business office and a recreation area on the second floor and several small apartments or rooms on upper floors that would serve as "home" to members.. The business would employ and job train members, help find employment and hopefully be successful enough to support all of this. In addition, we would teach the use of office machines and teach office and mail room skills to members interested in working in an office setting. As an organization, we strive to become self-supporting as our members strive to become productive members of Society. Our members are all uniquely talented individuals with great enthusiasm. All they need is the opportunity to prove it. With this in mind, we will send representatives into the community looking for jobs that can be filled by our members. We will support the employee and the employer until we are satisfied that the two will be mutually beneficial. In the past several years, there have been many budget cuts that affected the disabled. If the future holds more of the same, the disabled will be left without help. We want to start now so that our members have the skills and attitudes to meet this challenge when the time arrives!
Now in September of 2011, we are not any closer to our dream than we were six years ago. The economy took a terrible downturn which affected everyone but, as usual, hurt the poor the most. Now, 95% of our members can't pay dues and we are searching for ways to raise funds and provide some social opportunities for our members. Our friendships remain strong and our members truly love the companionship of their peers. The Board members will research ways to raise funds and do everything possible to find the funds to continue.
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. Fundraising
Especially in this economic downturn, raising funds is difficult and our need for funds is greater. We do a few things to help ourselves and in turn help save the environment. We collect used, no longer needed cell phone and empty inkjet cartridges. We recycle the inkjet cartridges through www.Empties4cash.com . In turn, we purchase remanufactured inkjet cartridges from www.inksmile.com to print our bi-annual newsletter, brochures, flyers and announcements. If you give our referral number (43531) when ordering remanufactured inkjets from Inksmile.com, we will receive an amount equal to 5% of your order at no cost to you. We receive payment for the inkjet cartridges that we recycle through Empties4cast.com. We, then, benefit from this practice as does the environment by keeping those items out of landfills. In addition, we recycle the no longer used cell phones that our members bring in through www.eco-cell.com. Again , we are paid for sending the phones to them and helping the environment by keeping those phones out of landfills and protecting the environment from further damage by the hazardous materials contained in those phones. If you are interested in sending us your used cell phones and empty inkjet cartridges for us to recycle in place of a cash donation, please e-mail me at Jerrie @vaughn-a-a.com. I will give you instructions on how to get them to us. When received, we will mail a receipt to you as proof of your tax deductible gift to us. Your donation to us in this regard will be greatly appreciated.
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Add the Vaughn and Friends Alumni toolbar to your Internet Explorer of Firefox. Once you add the Vaughn and Friends Alumni Association toolbar to your Internet Explorer or Firefox, you will be able to shop at one of the more than 1,300 participating stores and a percentage of what you spend will be donated to us at no extra cost to you! (You could even save money as the toolbar provides coupons and deals.) The toolbar also has a search box and each time you search the internet, about a penny is donated to us. That isn't much but if hundreds of people did hundreds of searches on that toolbar, we would make a significant amount of money. No registration is required! http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/vaughn-and-friends-alumni-association
Again: To download that toolbar and give us that invaluable help, just go to: www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/vaughn-and-friends-alumni-association.
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