Downtown Cincinnati is the place to live, work, and play populated by restaurants, cafes, bars, arts and culture venues around every corner, plus a long-awaited and busy Kroger's that anchors recently-renovated Court Street Plaza. The downtown urban core is alive with programming, including music during the summer and ice skating in the winter, and features the largest living room 'television' in the region overlooking The Genius of Water at Fountain Square. Downtown has experienced dramatic expansion and population growth with residential developments, including condos and apartments in all price ranges, many of which boast scenic views of the hillsides and the river and offer unparalleled access to nightlife and recreation.
When serial entrepreneur Mike Hooven founded the medical device startup AtriCure in 2000, Cincinnati was a swerve of the wheel for venture capitalists located on the coasts. But today, the city joins Boston and Minneapolis in the elite top three U.S. cities for developing medical devices.
Pauline Williams remembers her 10th birthday coming and going. There was no celebration, no cake, no birthday party—it was just a normal day. Williams lived with her mother in a local women’s shelter at the time and says there was no one to help them aside from those within the facility, who were already working to do the best they could to help others. Williams received a card from her mother and an acknowledgement on her special day, which she says was enough for her because she understood that her mother wasn’t able to give a lot at the time, other than herself. Though appreciative, Williams felt that she and the other children in the shelter deserved to celebrate their lives. “It just kind of felt bad,” says Williams. “And I felt like, if I ever grew up and was able to give back or do something about this, that’s what I’d do.” So Williams went to culinary school, received her degree and created the Tiers of Joy Foundation to ensure that other children’s birthdays do not go unnoticed. “Children need to feel empowered in order to grow up and become successful adults,” she says. “That’s really why I started this.” In April 2012, Tiers of Joy became an official nonprofit, and Williams began working with other organizations to see how she could benefit the children they serviced. From SpongeBob SquarePants to jewelry box-themed cakes, Williams now does it all. Her cake designs are solely dependent on children’s interests, and she works to make sure that young people feel honored and appreciated when embarking on new years of their lives. Williams currently serves children within the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky communities, but she says the sky is the limit. “I’d like for it to be a nationwide organization, where we can reach out to children all over to empower them through the celebration of their lives, so I hope for this to become something much larger than what it is.” Do Good: • Sign up to be a volunteer baker. • Donate money or baking supplies; or consider holding a Supplies Drive at your next office party or community event. • Spread the word about Tiers of Joy by following them on Twitter or liking them on Facebook. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
If you’ve ever wanted to become a clown, there’s no better time than now. Funny Companie Clowns, who volunteer their services at private parties and community events—all for the purpose of benefiting Cincinnati Children’s Hospital—need your help; and in an effort to recruit volunteers, they’ll begin free clown classes Feb. 5. Throughout a six-week series, soon-to-be entertainers learn the art of clowning. Topics include costumes and makeup, ballooning, face painting, skits and character development. “The character is supposed to be an extension of yourself,” says Don Bachman, who founded Funny Companie in 1983 and has volunteered and led the troupe for the past 29 years. Bachman, whose clown name is Dr. Fun, says character development was initially hard for him because he wanted to be “the smart clown,” and at one point even aspired to be “the mayor of clown town,” but those characters just weren’t the right fit. “You’ve got to be yourself," he says. "You’ve got to be who you are—so Dr. Fun was born—and he’s just dumb, and always wrong and always getting into trouble, and that’s kind of who I was.” Since the group’s inception, Funny Companie has raised approximately $200,000 in unrestricted funds for Children’s Hospital. The money can be used where the hospital best sees fit, and Bachman says for a long time the money went toward pediatric liver care. “It’s huge that you can take an adult liver and cut it down and transplant it into a kid because there’s not a lot of kids’ organs available for transplants,” says Bachman. “So that was a huge discovery, and it was done in Cincinnati.” While Funny Companie’s funding goes toward the children in the hospital, the clowns perform primarily for healthy children in the community; but it’s not just children whom clowns entertain, Bachman says. “Everybody laughs at a clown," he says. "Everybody smiles—even driving the car, we have magnetic bumper stickers that say, ‘Caution, sometimes I drive like a clown,’ and then they go by and see a clown driving the car, and they can be 80 years old and they’re laughing and smiling and waving at the clown—it’s not just kids." “Same thing with balloons—who likes balloons? Everyone likes a balloon. It doesn’t matter how old you are. A balloon is just a magical little piece, and so you’re making everybody’s life a little bit better.” Bachman and the other volunteers in the Companie love what they do. So much so that they purchase their own makeup, costumes and balloons. They oftentimes spend about four hours of their weekends preparing for and performing at an event. “It’s a pretty good-size commitment, but it’s not something that you’re giving and not getting anything in return,” says Bachman. “If you give a kid a balloon or you paint their face and hold the mirror up and their eyes and face light up—that’s your paycheck.” Right now, however, the number of volunteers is at an all-time low. “I’d always hoped that there’d be some younger people who come in and run with it and it’d go on forever, but right now I’m one of the youngest people in the group—our oldest clown is 78,” says Bachman. “There’s only about six of us right now. Anybody can do it, but there’s nobody really that’s 30 that can take it over, and that’s the sad thing. I’d really like to see somebody younger get in it and maybe run with it.” Because the clown company doesn’t do much advertising, most of the people who call for bookings have seen the clowns perform in the past. “It’s nice to be able to tell people 'yes' when they call for an event, and it’s the hardest thing to tell them no,” says Bachman. “But it just happens where some weekends, we just don’t have anybody.” Clown classes begin Tuesday, Feb. 5 and will take place from 7:30 to 9 p.m. in room D242 at Children’s Hospital’s Albert B. Sabin Education Center. All ages are welcome and encouraged to attend. Do Good: • Volunteer as a clown. Attend free classes which will take place Tuesday evenings from 7:30 to 9 p.m. beginning Feb. 5. • Spread the word about classes, and encourage a friend to become a clown. • Book the Funny Companie Clowns for a future event. Contact Children's Hospital's Department of Development at 513-636-6080 for more information. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
At Soapbox, job listings have always been popular landing pages for regular readers, browsers and job seekers. Starting today, thanks to a partnership with local startup GigitJobs.com, readers can find even more creative and techie jobs for the taking in Greater Cincinnati.
In 1995, a small group of retired business executives came together with the intent of giving back to their community by investing their time and talents in work that would assist nonprofits. Now, nearly 18 years later, Executive Service Corps of Cincinnati is the recipient of an $85,000 award that will help more than 130 volunteers provide low-cost, high-quality strategic thinking, planning, training and coaching to other nonprofits in need. The recent funding will help the ESCC implement its Community Benefit Business Model, which, according to Andy McCreanor, executive director and CEO of the organization, is a model that has essentially always existed within the nonprofit, but has now been refined and strengthened. The model helps nonprofits maximize results so that they may receive additional funding to better fulfill their missions, which ultimately works to improve the communities they serve. “It enables investors to get more out of the nonprofits that they’re investing in, and secondly, it helps the nonprofits because we’re affordable," says McCreanor. "We’re merely a vehicle so that the community gets the benefit that they’re trying to get." The ESCC has worked on long-term projects with more than 500 nonprofits in Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana since 1995, including most recently the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. ESCC also offers a 10-month program at its Nonprofit Leadership Institute each year; and at its culmination in June, more than 100 nonprofit leaders from Cincinnati will have graduated. McCreanor says that because of the recent economic downturn, nonprofits have suffered and organizations are reevaluating and assessing their goals and missions. “We’re here to help,” he says. “If you’re struggling out there, it really doesn’t cost anything to talk about what you’re dealing with, and if in fact there is a way for us to help, it’s going to be done at a very low cost, so it’s kind of the best of all worlds.” Do Good: • Sign up to attend classes at the Nonprofit Leadership Institute. • Volunteer your business skills and experience to serve other nonprofits. • Reach out to the ESCC if you are a nonprofit that could benefit from its services. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
While Katie Haumesser was on her way home from taking her daughter to Children’s Hospital in February 2006, a drunk driver who was traveling at about 100 miles per hour hit her vehicle head-on. Haumesser, a single mom who had devoted her life’s work to serving children with special needs as a speech-language pathologist, died instantly at the scene. Her compassion, however, lived on and is the inspiration for Katie’s House, which is set to open later this year. The Katie Haumesser Foundation was founded in 2007 to honor Haumesser’s life by giving back to the children she lived to help. Led by her family, the nonprofit started raising funds for the special needs department at Haumesser’s former place of employment, Willowville Elementary. Part of the foundation’s mission is to fund scholarships for University of Cincinnati students who follow Haumesser’s path by majoring in speech-language pathology. Initially, the organization decided to raise money for one charity per year to help students like the ones Haumesser helped; but in 2010, a broader vision emerged. With the help of the Hearing Speech & Deaf Center of Greater Cincinnati, the leaders of the Katie Haumesser Foundation came up with the idea for Katie’s House, a comfortable, home-like facility where children with special needs could receive speech, language, audiology and occupational therapy. The facility will be housed on the renovated third floor of the Hearing Speech & Deaf Center and will provide services to those in need, regardless of whether or not they have the ability to pay. “The home-like setting is going to be more inviting for the kids instead of walking into a sterile doctor’s office,” says Amy Zeisler, Haumesser’s sister and co-founder of the nonprofit. “When you get off the elevator, it’s going to look like the front of a house, and the carpet is going to be AstroTurf to look like grass.” Within the facility, there will be a living room, which will serve as a group area, a kitchen, a gym—designed as a backyard—for occupational therapy, and bedrooms, which will serve as individual therapy areas. In addition to serving children, the Center will provide education for parents who may be struggling with how to understand and cope with their children’s disabilities. Katie’s House will also provide support for children with other conditions, such as autism. “Katie worked with a boy who had autism and wasn’t speaking for a while, and then he became verbal,” says Zeisler. “It was very moving for her to see how what she was doing impacts kids' futures and how important communication is to succeed.” According to Zeisler, her sister knew that early intervention is key to helping children with disabilities maintain a “steady life.” With Katie’s House, those ideals will take shape in a way that Zeisler is confident her sister would be proud of; and she says she can’t wait for the grand opening later this year. “We’re taking tragedy and turning it into something positive,” Zeisler says. “And I’m hoping that people can see what we’re doing. It’s going to be amazing.” Do Good: • Make a financial contribution or contact the nonprofit to donate items for silent auction. • Volunteer at the annual fundraiser April 12. • Nominate a community member who serves children for an Outstanding Service Award. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
About a year after changing creative agencies, Famous Footwear has chosen Cincinnati's Empower MediaMarketing for the assignment. The retailer typically spends more than $30 million on media each year. Read the full story here.
Wanda Owens, who lost her vision to multiple sclerosis when she turned 20, says working as an artist is something she’s wanted to do since she was a little girl; and at the age of 64, she’s fulfilling her childhood dream. Beginning Feb. 9, her work will be featured in an exhibit titled “Illuminated Soul” at Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired’s Willoughby Art Gallery. Owens will have 20 ceramic pieces on display and available for purchase. She’s completed all of her work in the studio, and since she is a Clovernook artist who participates in classes on site, she will receive 100 percent of the proceeds—something Alison DeFisher, manager of communications at Clovernook, says empowers the artists. “A lot of people have described it as an outlet for them, to be able to participate in art and be able to express themselves and increase independence because it’s not traditionally something a person who is blind is thought to be able to do,” says DeFisher. Art classes are by appointment and take place weekly at Clovernook’s studio, and they are open to anyone who is blind or visually impaired. Scott Wallace, recreation specialist at Clovernook, leads individual painting and ceramics classes, in addition to group classes, depending on participants’ goals and interests. “I’m blessed to have a wonderful teacher who is very encouraging,” says Owens. “Everything he says, I can do, and he helps me to see color.” She says Wallace will help her pick out paint colors by reminding her of shades. He will, for example, tell her that the shade she is currently looking at is slightly darker than baby blue; and this will remind her of what baby blue looks like, which enables her to choose the appropriate shade so she can proceed in portraying her vision. “It’s really a spiritual experience,” says Owens. “I asked God to bless the labor of my hands, and He has.” Owens is a former singer, and this is something she says inspires her artwork, though there is nothing specifically in her pieces that reflect her pastime. Two things that Owens says she tries to feature in all of her works, however, are “clowns and the Lord.” Owens says she loves to laugh, so she always tries to incorporate that element of joy into her pieces. “Illuminated Soul” will begin with an opening reception from noon to 5 p.m. Feb. 9, and it will remain open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and by appointment through March 8. The opening reception for “Illuminated Soul” will be featured on the first day of this year’s Macy’s Arts Sampler. Do Good: • Support Wanda Owens by viewing or purchasing her pottery at "Illuminated Soul." • Make a donation to support the Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. • Volunteer your services to help fulfill the Clovernook Center's mission. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
According to Mohsen Rezayat, CEO and president of OMID-USA, a Cincinnati-based nonprofit, many of the world’s problems are because of the imbalance between the rich and the poor. OMID's goal is to increase earning power by three for individuals around the world who make, on average, less than $2 per day. OMID, a Farsi word that means “hope,” is what the organization wants to provide for the more than one million people it aims to reach. “There’s a lot of data gathered to show that if a person makes $1 per day and then that is brought up to $4 per day, it makes a huge difference in their lives,” says Rezayat. “They can build a house; their kids can get higher education; they can afford medicine for their kids and their wife when they get sick.” OMID began in 2009 with the intention of finding a way help the bottom 1.2 billion people in the world who make less than $1 per day. According to Rezayat, 85 percent of those individuals are farmers who live in rural areas, where obtaining water for their crops is extremely difficult. “We thought to solve the problem, we should start at the very beginning, and that’s control over water,” says Rezayat. So the nonprofit, in conjunction with electrical engineering students from the University of Cincinnati, designed the Portable Renewable Energy Platform, otherwise known as PREP, to assist farmers in using drip irrigation to move water from its source, while conserving it by allowing it to flow straight to the roots of their crops. “It’s basically a single solar panel that can be set up very quickly, raised so that it’s at the right angle to face the sun, with some electrical components that regulate and boost the voltage; and we also have a pump,” says Rezayat. “So the panel, the pump and the drip irrigation all cost about $400. With one you can drip irrigate about one acre of land, so we can move the water from any location to another location, put it inside the plastic tank that we have and let gravity kind of feed the water in.” Since the technology is too expensive for the subsistence farmers to afford in one lump-sum, OMID offers microloans to make it more affordable. “By increasing their production, they can pay back the money that was lent out to them,” says Rezayat. “The whole idea is that if people invest their own time and their own money, then they have a sense of ownership and responsibility.” The nonprofit’s purpose is not to continue manufacturing technology and transporting it to the regions in need, but instead to go into an area, set up the technology and find out if it’s a good fit, and then show the people how to use it so they can adapt the technology and begin to create jobs by producing it locally. That’s exactly what OMID did in Iran, which was the location for PREP’s first pilot project in 2010. The project took place in three villages with 20 farmers. Though the volunteers working on the pilot had hoped to reach more people, they were forced to leave the area because of sanctions. Their work, however, was not in vain. There are now three manufacturing plants in the closest town to the three villages that participated in the pilot that are making the drip irrigation system. “And from what I’ve been told, there’s a big rage—even the mayor of that town has used the drip irrigation for the city building to show people how cool it is,” says Rezayat. OMID is set to perform another pilot project with PREP, which is set to take place in March. This time, the organization will travel to Haiti in an effort to get closer to its goal of one million farmers. “Farmers in Iran told me very recently, if they didn’t have the drip irrigation PREP system, they would have lost everything in the last two years because it was extremely dry,” says Rezayat. “It’s all about survival, and it’s very satisfying to hear these farmers tell me that they basically wouldn’t have had anything if it wasn’t for us giving them the ability to. “ Do Good: • Attend OMID-USA-sponsored events, such as the upcoming domino 02: Aqua—an international exhibition where 12 artists' collaborative work will be displayed and available for purchase. Rezayat will unveil the PREP prototype during the event's opening reception at the Artisan Enterprise Center Jan. 18. • Support OMID-USA by making a donation. • Promote awareness by liking OMID-USA on Facebook, sharing the page and spreading the word. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.
Sarah Dworak and Iwona Przybysz started Babushka Pierogies in July 2012 with a vegan pierogi tasting at Park+Vine. At the same time, they gave a sample of their traditional potato and cheese pierogi to Findlay Market favorites Bryan and Carolyn Madison, who liked them and agreed to sell them at their store. Both Dworak, who is of Ukrainian, Croatian and Polish descent, and Przybysz, who is from Poland, learned to make pierogies from their babushkas—their grandmothers. Their pierogi recipe is a combination of their family recipes, Dworak says. Currently, Dworak and Przybysz make pierogies in a kitchen in Glendale, then deliver them to Findlay Market and Park+Vine. When the weather permits, Babushka Pierogies also hold pierogi tastings outside of Madison’s at Findlay Market on Saturdays. They only spend two days per week in the kitchen, making about 500 pierogies in that time. Dworak and Przybysz are the only official employees, but Dworak’s boyfriend, Josh Mrvelj, helps out whenever he can. He designed their logo and fries up the pierogies at Findlay Market during tastings. Babushka Pierogies is looking for a storefront near Findlay Market, Dworak says. They also want to expand the number of stores that sell their products. “The store will allow us to offer more varieties of pierogies, in addition to other Eastern European foods we love, such as borchst; halushki, a cabbage and noodle dish; and stuffed cabbage,” she says. Babushka Pierogies sells a potato, cheese and onion pierogi; a potato and sauerkraut pierogi and a vegan potato, cheese and onion pierogi. The potato and cheese and potato and sauerkraut pierogies are $5 per half dozen, and the vegan pierogies are $5.75 per half dozen. By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter
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