Breaking News from M33 Access
Rock ’n’
Roll up your sleeve!
M33 Access adds massive blood drive to annual
Festival and Concert fundraiser
ROSE CITY, MI – Visitors
to the 9th Annual M33 Access Customer
Appreciation Day Festival and Concert Fundraiser will be
asked, cajoled, challenged, encouraged and otherwise
invited to take part in the event’s first-ever blood
drive with a target goal of 500 pints, making it one of
the largest one-day campaigns ever in Michigan.
“We’re absolutely thrilled
to be doing this,” said Glenn A. Wilson, Sr., the
company’s founder and CEO. “This Festival has taken on a
life of its own in the past few years, evolving from a
big company picnic to a giant community fundraiser.
“This blood drive merely
personifies what the festival has become – a family
oriented event to gather a bunch of great people, have a
wonderful time and in the process do some really nice
things to help others. And what nicer thing can we do
for others than to roll up our sleeves and give the gift
of life.”
The blood drive is one of
several new additions to the July 19 event at the
company’s headquarters in this Ogemaw County village.
Several activities designed to improve the health and
welfare of children will be unveiled in the coming
weeks, Wilson said.
Last year’s event raised
more than $20,000 for local charities and youth groups.
This year Wilson hopes to top $30,000.
The drive will be
conducted by the staff from Michigan Community Blood
Centers Northwest Region, headquartered in Traverse
City. Blood collected at the drive will benefit Michigan
patients directly, including many in Northern Michigan,
since Michigan Community Blood Centers’ top priority is
to make sure blood is available for patients in local
hospitals.
“It’s a huge undertaking,”
said Sharon Childs, director of donor services and
recruitment. She estimated it will take a staff of
upwards of 60, about half of them nurses, from Michigan
Community Blood Centers facilities in Saginaw, Grand
Rapids and Traverse City, to help reach the goal of 500
pints.
Staging a blood drive in
conjunction with this type of event is unprecedented for
Michigan Community Blood Centers in Northern Michigan,
and it’s been a long time coming, Childs said.
“When I worked for the
Saginaw Valley office, that was an industrial area and
big industry was the base of our donor program,” she
explained. “When I came north, we didn’t have that
industry. Where do we need to go to find the people,
especially in the summer? They congregate in the
summertime to celebrate at festivals like these. So I’ve
always said we need to go to these big events and have a
blood drive.”
Which explains why the
invitation from M33 Access, whose annual event has drawn
crowds approaching 7,500, was greeted so
enthusiastically, Childs said.
“This is the only time
I’ve encountered another organization who said, ‘Wow,
this might be a great way we can help in our community.’
So we said, ‘Hey, let’s help them pull this off.’ We’re
very excited about it.”
For more information about
the blood drive, and to make an online appointment to
donate, visit
www.m33access.com and click on the
Festival icon. For more information about donating
blood, contact MCBC recruiter Holly Sika at (866)
642-5663, or log onto
www.miblood.org.
Founded by Wilson in 1999,
M33 Access provides high-speed Internet connectivity to
families, businesses and schools using wireless
broadband and dial-up connections. Its network, covering
more than 10,000 square miles in northeast Michigan, is
among the largest wireless ISPs in the world.
Established in 1955,
Michigan Community Blood Centers is an independent,
501(c)(3) nonprofit blood bank that provides 100 percent
of the blood supply for hospitals in four major regions
in Michigan, with a total population of 1.5 million. It
also supports military, disaster-related and other
national blood needs on request. For more information,
visit www.miblood.org.
M33 Access Adds
Second Day to Annual Customer Appreciation Day Festival and
Concert Fundraiser
What was once a pleasant little company picnic open to
the public has become one of the largest charity fundraisers
in Northern Michigan – and the tradition continues this
summer at the 9th Annual M33 Access Customer Appreciation
Day Festival and Concert.
And this year, it’s a two-day celebration. Mark July
18-19 on your calendar and plan to attend a Friday night
concert and a day-long family celebration Saturday featuring
fun for the whole family, food and drinks, a classic car
show and a stage show headlined by the return of a pair of
bands that dazzled last year’s crowd of about 6,500, and the
best fireworks show north of Bay City.
“We’re also going to have another raffle to win two brand
new vehicles, and with more time to sell tickets this year
we’re confident of present two sets of keys to the winners,”
said M33 Access President and CEO Glenn A. Wilson, Sr. “But
that’s just the beginning.
“We have a whole list of new promotions this year, some
of them right off the charts in terms of how they’ll benefit
our community, and we’ll be announcing them as soon as we
have all the details in place.”
The Friday night show features a Battle of the Bands
followed by a concert by Led Zepagain, a tribute to the
famed 1970s rock group, Led Zeppelin. Saturday night’s stage
show begins with the winners of the Battle of the Bands,
followed by encore performances by 25-Cent Beer, a renowned
country group out of Bay City, and LIVE WIRE, the AC/DC
tribute band that rocked Rose City last July.
Last year, the Festival helped to raise more than $20,000
for a variety of local charities and youth groups, including
the Little Leagues of West Branch and Rose City, the
American Red Cross, the Ogemaw County Humane Society, the
Fairview High School girls’ basketball program and others.
“That’s our goal this year, though I’m confident we’ll do
better than that in the end,” Wilson said.
“If we do this thing right – and believe me we’re
trying to make it better every year – then everybody
wins. Some people like to think it’s just one big party
out here. And we do manage to have a good time. But the
whole point behind it is to try to raise some money for
so many good and important causes in the communities we
serve.”
Information on how to get tickets is available at the
company’s festival Web site. Visit
www.m33access.com to
connect to it.
All festival reservations and transactions
will be conducted through this site.
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