Category: Non-Profit

A Branding Jumpstart for Luzerne County Head Start

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We’d like to introduce you to our friends at Luzerne County Head Start.

Nearly 6 months ago we participated in “Cropped“, a creative competition hosted by the American Advertising Federation of NEPA that helps non-profits receive new or updated branding through 3 fast-paced rounds of competition between local marketing companies. Luzerne County Head Start (LCHS) was chosen as last year’s featured non-profit, so they presented their list of marketing needs at the competition in November. Each of the teams had to create a logo, tagline, and campaign strategy in 20-minute segments while using only markers, crayons and craft paper. After each segment, a team was eliminated (“cropped” out) by a panel of judges until there was only one team left. The winning team then worked with the non-profit to complete the suite of marketing materials they proposed during the competition at no cost to the nonprofit.

After some creative crayon drawings, brain-busting brainstorming, and witty word-play, Posture ascended through the rounds and won the competition. The best part? We got to work closely with the wonderful Head Start team and we were even invited to visit their location in Wilkes-Barre to help make pancakes and eat breakfast with the kids.

Head Start promotes the school readiness of young children from low-income families through agencies in their local community. Head Start and Early Head Start programs support the comprehensive development of children from birth to age 5, in centers, child care partner locations, and in their own homes. This includes a wealth of information of resources for new or soon-to-be new parents.

Even with such a fantastic wide-spread mission, LCHS still needed a hand with their marketing to help garner the support of more community resources and funding. They actually have a wait list for children to get in because there are many families who can benefit greatly from these programs, but Head Start only has so many open seats for children in the area with their current resources. So in addition to developing a new refreshed logo and a tagline that better expresses the mission of Head Start, we also created a campaign strategy to get the word out.

After seeing how excited Lynn and the team were to use their new marketing materials, we knew we were hooked on Head Start and we couldn’t stop there. The team approached us about giving their website a much-needed overhaul, and we gladly whipped up a proposal for what we know will be a great new chapter for Luzerne County Head Start. Stay tuned for great things to come for our friends at LCHS!

OurSELF Exhibition

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Sometimes a project comes along that really hits home for us. The Popup Studio’s OurSELF exhibit at The Everhart Museum truly speaks to us in how it explores the difficulties of perception and mental illness. The exhibition is open through April 29th, and we can’t recommend it enough.

OurSELF is a site-specific visual exhibition created by Scranton’s Pop Up Studio that seeks to create empathy and open dialogue about mental health through a thoughtful, interactive, art installation. The viewer is taken on a journey through a series of emotional and sensory experiences. Visitors are invited to move through each gallery and allow the installation to challenge their understanding of their environment and their ability to control it.

We were honored to work with the Pop-Up studio to create branding and collateral pieces to help spread the word on their visionary exhibit and mental health awareness in general.

Museum goers can also pay a visit to the lower-level gallery to discover another component to the mental health discussion: HerSELF, the art of Amy Kiser. Amy found her voice as an artist and a survivor through a series of paintings and lithographic prints. Kiser’s work is reflective of powerful and traumatic life experiences which she conveyed through the use of color washes and line work that create overlapping layers onto her subject matter. The result is often haunting. These emotional depictions, most often of women and animals, were a source of power for Kiser and offer us insight into HerSELF.

Check out these powerful interactive experiences before the exhibit concludes its run on Monday, April 29!

Bringing it Home for Janet Weis Children’s Hospital

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We are blessed to work with a lot of different fine folks in the Geisinger family, but the Children’s Hospital holds a special place in our hearts – but not just around the holidays! Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital is the first rural acute-care children’s hospital in the country and one of the first rural academic facilities in the region, making it a unique facility specially designed to meet the challenges of providing health care to children living in rural areas.

It doesn’t matter if you live in a rural or urban area, when a child is seriously ill, injured or facing a life-threatening condition. Their pediatric specialists can step in immediately, using state-of-the-art technology to provide emergency, trauma and critical care.

Being a national destination for children’s care means not only leading the way in addressing pediatric health issues, but it also requires a special understanding of the particular needs of a young patient, as well as his or her parents and other family members, especially siblings. Janet Weis Children’s Hospital strives to care not just for a condition, but for the whole patient – and their family.

 

Support of Janet Weis Children’s Hospital ensures children throughout NEPA and beyond are getting access to the best healthcare and the most experienced pediatric providers available in the United States.

 

Do it for the kids – build a virtual gingerbread house for Janet Weis Children’s Hospital!

 

Join the Posture House Party now through December 31st and share your house on social media to vote for AIE NEPA as the winner of our grand prize — a cash donation plus design and digital support totaling $5,000! (Don’t forget to include the #posturehouseparty hashtag so we can see your house and count your vote.)

Start building here.

Build a home where you can live united.

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The United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties has been a staple in our community for as far back as I can remember. Whether it was stuffing envelopes, painting a house, or earning my fundraising pin, I’ve always had a wonderful experience working with this group of kind and caring professionals. But do you realize the massive amount of work they do?

The United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties fight for the education, financial stability and health of every person in our community. They identify the most concerning issues for our community;  pool resources for fundraising, awareness, and volunteers and then fearlessly attack social problems head-on.

Support of the United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties isn’t supporting just one cause, it’s supporting the many issues the cause threat to the well-being of our community.

Live United and support your community by building a virtual gingerbread house for The United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties.

Join the Posture House Party now through December 31st and share your house on social media with #PostureHouseParty to vote for The United Way as the winner of our grand prize — a cash donation plus design and digital support totaling $5,000!

Start building here.

Four Paw Party in the House for Blue Chip Farm!

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It’s no secret that the Posture team has a soft spot for animals, so Blue Chip Farm Animal Refuge seemed like a natural foundation choice for us. We all own or have owned multiple animals in our lives that we hold near and dear. One of our four-pawed peeps actually works with us at the office every so often – some of you reading this may have already met my branding connoisseur, Mars the dachshund. He’s great with offering snack advice, but logs most of his time here under “Posture naps.” He can be such a weenie.

Cat and dog brothers
Mars with his “baby” brother Ares vs. the brothers recently celebrating our wedding day. <3

What some of you may not know is Mars has not always had an easy time of getting around Scranton.

Back in 2012, he was afflicted with an acute case of IVDD (intervertebral disc disease), a spine condition that commonly affects dachshunds and other small dogs and often paralyzes the lower half of their body. The first time this happened, my husband and I pulled our finances together as best we could to afford a surgery that we hoped would give him his quality of life back – and it did! Unfortunately, IVDD struck again 2 years later in 2014 and we were put in a tough financial spot. Luckily, with the help of our wonderful family and friends via our GoFundMe campaign, we were able to again give Mars the surgery he needed and he has lived a full and happy life ever since.

Mars recovered fast after his second back surgery and soon we were helping him walk again to go outside

 

A lot of animals are not as lucky as Mars is.

They don’t have a small community to rally for them when they get seriously sick or injured – instead, they are counting on volunteers and caretakers at local organizations. This is why the mission of Blue Chip Farm is so important to myself and the Posture team – they are giving many animals a second chance at life that they may not have otherwise had. They even have a dachshund success story similar to Mars – all made possible through the generosity of donors and eventually a serendipitous adoption that led to Bella’s recovery.

Mars can definitely relate. He’s a senior dog living life to his fullest, and so are many other animals thanks to the wonderful folks at Blue Chip Farm Animal Refuge. If you love dachshunds and are looking for another way you can help, you can purchase the book about Bella the dog here – proceeds support Bella’s continued medical care as well as Blue Chip Farm.

 

Show your support for the animals and build a virtual gingerbread house for Blue Chip Farm!

Join the Posture House Party now through December 31st and share your house on social media to vote for Blue Chip Farm as the winner a cash donation plus design and digital support totaling $5,000. Don’t forget to use the hashtag #posturehouseparty for your house/vote to count!

Start building here.

Party on…and keep the Arts Alive

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I knew pretty early in life that I would pursue a career in something related to visual art. Whether it was drawing banners or building crafts as a kid, I was always pretty artsy-fartsy. I identified and thrived in this area because I was exposed to it and given the opportunity in school and at home to be as artistic as I could.  I was lucky. Not every kid has those opportunities.

Research shows the arts offer benefits far beyond creativity — they increase productivity and focus, they boost confidence, teach problem-solving and so much more. Regardless of their benefits, budgets and curriculums in our public schools make it difficult for our children to be exposed to visual and performing art.

So when our team started thinking about what local organizations we wanted to support this holiday season it was only natural that I thought of something that has had an impact on me personally.  I’ve had the pleasure of working hand in hand with Arts in Education NEPA, a partnership organization of The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and NEIU 19. Their mission is to advocates for arts education in schools and communities. They administer quality learning experiences in the performing and visual arts.

 

The most widely known AIE NEPA program, Arts Alive, is celebrating their 26th year this summer. Arts Alive pairs professional working artists and students in grades K-12 for four intensive weeks each summer. And the outcome is nothing short of remarkable.  They create a safe space where no one feels like an outsider and anything is possible. Students self-esteem skyrockets and the boost in confidence trickles through all of their studies improving their grades and attitudes with lifelong lessons they will take with them throughout the year.

What’s even more remarkable is the effect these programs have on children with more serious needs. I’ve personally met autistic children who entered the program as a nonverbal student and have found their voice through Arts Alive… literally and figuratively.

 

Support of AIE NEPA provides scholarships and transportation to students that otherwise wouldn’t have access to quality educational art programs.

 

Show your support for the arts and build a virtual gingerbread house for AIE NEPA!

Join the Posture House Party now through December 31st and share your house on social media with #PostureHouseParty to vote for AIE NEPA as the winner of our grand prize — a cash donation plus design and digital support totaling $5,000!

Start building here.

We’re having a party… and you’re invited!

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The Posture elves have been busy working on something really fun for this holiday season — we’re having a house party, and you’re invited! No need for a covered dish or party clothes, you can join in the fun right from your couch if you like.

The Posture House Party is an interactive gingerbread house building extravaganza!

 

We’re asking our friends, families, clients and the community to build their own digital gingerbread house and share their holiday creation on social media.  But what’s even better is each house built will be a vote for one of our favorite non-profits. The organization with the most houses shared in their honor will be awarded a cash prize and a boatload of our time for their design, web, and digital content needs — all totaling $5,000!

 

The Posture team put our heads together to identify the causes we care about most —  as a result, we’re thrilled to be partnering with Arts in Education Northeast Pensylvania, Blue Chip Farm, Geisinger Janet Weis Children’s Hospital, The United Way of Lackawanna and Wayne Counties, and Our Pocono Waters.

 

We’ll be partying on until December 31st and we’ll announce our winner in the new year!

What are you waiting for? Start building at PostureHouseParty.com

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