I recently received an e-mail from our Senior Minister at St. Paul's UMC, Dr. Jim Bankston, about a project being spearheaded by Interfaith Ministries (IM) and 25 other Houston congregations of various denominations. 

The Digital TV Senior Initiative has been coordinated to ensure senior citizens do not lose their connection to the community through local television service.  In February of next year the FCC has mandated that TV broadcasters will be converted to a digital signal and for most of us that currently subscribe to cable or satellite services, this will not interrupt our television service.  But many senior citizens in our community still use analog televisions and antennas and may not even be aware of the FCC mandate and how this will affect them.

It is easy to help.  Each household is entitled to receive 2 DTV boxes free of charge to allow conversion of analog televisions to digital compatible.  The Digital TV Senior Initiative is requesting that each of us apply for the two certificates, free of charge, and donate those for use by the senior citizens in our community.  The coupons that are received have a very short expiration date, so it is key to APPLY for your certificates today and quickly turn-around to the project.  You are welcome to bring your certificates by the studio and we can take them to St. Paul's on your behalf or feel free to go to the website to learn more about where you can drop your certificates.

The goal of this project is to collect over 4,000 coupons.  Once the coupons have been collected, volunteers will install the conversion boxes in the seniors' homes.  To register for your coupons, please apply online at www.dtv2009.gov or call 1-888-DTV-2009.

You can find more detailed information in the document at this link:

Dr. Jim Bankston Letter:

Thank you for your support to help the senior citizens in our community.

Posted by danny at 11:38 PM | Permalink

As a small business we feel that it is imperative to support those in our community. Danny Clark Photography is proud of our commitment to assist worthy charities, schools, small businesses and organizations in their fund raising efforts.  Below are a list of way we like to give back:

We routinely donate portrait gift certificates to organizations and schools for their silent auctions.  Please call the studio for details on how you can make a fabulous Danny Clark Photography gift certificate available for your favorite charitable organization.

If you have any children in school you have committed to selling paper goods, candy or even coupon books to raise money for the parent teacher organization.  Usually only a small percentage is given back to the school with a larger percent going to the selling company.  In all fairness we feel that the efforts to raise money should go back to the schools 100%.  This is why we have developed our Portrait Partnership with local parent teacher organizations. 

The program is simple and painless. e donate a set number of gift certificates to the school PTO.
The school sells the gift certificates for whatever price they feel reasonable. The parents pay the school directly for the gift certificate and 100% of the sale goes directly to the PTO. 

The gift certificates are redeemable at the studio for one year depending on availability with no minimum order or obligation to purchase anything. If you think your school would be interested in partnering with Danny Clark Photography please contact us for further details.

In our community we feel it important to help other small businesses because it helps us too.  Here in the Rice Village and other surrounding areas big business corporations are driving the small businesses away.  We want to be around for a long time and the only way we can do that is by working together.  Every month we highlight another small business in our community through our email newsletter and blog.  Not only do we learn more about other businesses in our area we make some really great friends and business partners.  The businesses we highlight are referred to us by other small businesses, places we shop and frequent or places that are just down right cool.  So f you have a recommendation for a business please let us know and we will check it out. 

Posted by danny at 08:54 PM | Permalink